New Lockerbie claim Zionist propaganda: Iran

An Iranian deputy foreign minister says a new allegation about Iran’s involvement in the 1988 attack on a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland is a Zionist propaganda.

The “fabricated report” broadcast by Qatar’s state-run Al Jazeera on Iran’s involvement in the attack just ahead of a joint Tehran-Doha Committee is highly questionable, Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Wednesday.

Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran has urged Doha not to allow the Zionists to push their agenda through Qatari media.

The Iranian official also stated that Tehran’s stance on fighting terrorism has always been clear.

In December 1988, all 259 people onboard Pan AM Flight 103 and 11 others on the ground were killed when the Boeing 747 exploded in the air over Scotland’s southern city of Lockerbie.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi of Libya was the only one convicted of the Lockerbie bombing and was sentenced to serve a life term in a Scottish prison. But he was released in 2009 after being diagnosed with a terminal cancer.

In a Monday interview with the Doha-based Al Jazeera TV, Abolqasem Mesbahi, who claims to be a fugitive former Iranian official now living in Germany, alleged that the bombing was ordered by Tehran and carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).

Iran categorically dismissed the allegation and reiterated its strong opposition to any “act of terror.”