'Lockerbie' Peacock Recap & Ending Explained: Is Megrahi Really Guilty? 

Lockerbie: A Search for Truth centers on grieving father Dr. Jim Swire’s quest to find justice for his daughter Flora, who died in the infamous Lockerbie bombing on 21st December, 1988. While the initial episodes of the show show a determined Jim who would go any distance to uncover the truth about the incident, the later episodes raise the big question: Was Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (Baset in short), the only person who was convicted for the bombing, actually guilty or not? Jim Swire certainly believes he was not, and the show seems to say the same thing too. In this article, we’re going to discuss Peacock’s Lockerbie and its ending. It is, of course, based on a true story, but we’re only going to talk about what we see on screen. 

Spoilers Ahead

What Happens In The Show? 

The year is 2002; Dr. Jim Swire visits Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the first time in Scottish prison, where the latter is serving a life sentence for being the main perpetrator responsible in the Lockerbie bombing, which happened fourteen years prior, that took down the PAN AM-103. The doctor directly asks Megrahi whether he is the one who killed his daughter Flora or not. 

We then go into a flashback. The Christmas spirit is a little dampened at the Swire household as Flora is leaving for America to spend the holidays with her boyfriend. Otherwise, it is a pretty happy English family scene where everyone is gearing up for the festivities. Their world turns upside down when, later that day, Flora’s flight crashes down in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing everyone on board. Dr. Swire and his family—wife Jane, son Will, and the other daughter, Cathy—are devastated; so are the families and friends of everyone who boarded the ill-fated flight. 

What follows is the usual: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meeting the families, promising all sorts of help, and so on. But Dr. Swire is not the kind of person who can rest without finding out what really happened. A chance meeting with journalist Murray Guthrie—who went to the crash site right after the incident—adds fuel to the determination. Murray lets Jim know about the US embassy of Helsinki receiving a phone call regarding the whole thing—the bombing, the plane crash, and the PAN-AM flight. Despite knowing about that, the British government chose to treat the tip as a hoax. What’s even worse is Heathrow airport not receiving any warning from the department of transport before the incident. The sudden firing of Secretary of State for Transport Paul Channon and replacing him with Cecil Parkinson further hints at a bigger conspiracy and the incompetence of the British government. Jim soon becomes the spokesperson for all the families, and with the help of Murray, he continues to lobby for a proper investigation.

I had to check whether the real Jim Swire made a fake bomb and actually travelled to the US from the UK, effectively pointing out how faulty the airport security systems are, and I found out it really did happen. Of course the government doesn’t take this well. Maybe a repercussion of that is that the Thatcher government doesn’t sanction any separate inquiry about the incident. Murray spitting out facts regarding how the same government launching an investigation over incidents where far fewer people died is another thing that makes Jim believe that the government might be hiding something. Things start looking a little better when two names—Megrahi and one Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah—start making rounds as the people who orchestrated the bombing. However, thanks to the volatile relationship between the rogue Libyan government led by General Gaddafi and both the UK and the USA, a trial of these two doesn’t seem on the cards. Jim even dares to go to Libya and see Gaddafi by himself, requesting he let Megrahi and Fhimah stand trial. Ultimately, legal expert Robert Black comes up with the most viable solution of organizing the trial in a neutral country, which happens to be the Netherlands.

What happens at the trial?

We already know the result here—Megrahi is found guilty. But the show takes a dramatic turn in reaching there. The prosecution brings in one Mr. Bollier, who has sold timers (of the same kind that was used for the bomb inside the plane) to the Libyan and also happens to know Megrahi. Then there’s this clothing shop owner in Malta who claims that Megrahi bought clothes from him (the shirt where he allegedly hid the timer) just before the incident. It is also established that Malta is where the bomb was placed on the flight by Mergrahi. He used to be the former head of security at the airport, so putting the bomb inside a suitcase and then getting it onto the plane shouldn’t have been a problem for him. At least that’s the theory the prosecution firmly establishes, and despite the fact that Gaucy’s statement is dicey and there are several more problems that includes CIA informant Giaka proving to be unreliable, the judge announces the verdict—Megrahi is guilty (Fhimah is found not guilty, though)—and hands him a life sentence. The series pretty much goes into documentary mode here, as you can see. There’s a lot of information and technicalities that are fed to the audience, none of it hard to understand, but this is a storytelling approach I’m personally not fond of. 

With the verdict reached, the families of the PAN-AM victims find a kind of solace, and they finally start to move on. But that’s not the case with Jim, who, along with Murray, realizes that Megrahi is being set up, and every single player, from the British to the US government to the CIA, might be involved here. Not that the government bombed the plane, but whoever (by that I mean whichever country here) did it is being protected for political interest. Given where Libya and Gaddafi stand, throwing them under the bus makes sense.

Is Megrahi really guilty? 

Alright, here’s the dilemma I face. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted by the law. The charges against him were proven in court. Till this day, his innocence has not been proven, and his family is still trying to earn him that. If we go by the show, though, Megrahi doesn’t come off as guilty at all. The thing we need to remember is that “Lockerbie” is based on a book the real-life Jim Swire co-wrote with Peter Biddulph (titled ‘The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father’s Search for Justice’), and the entire story is something we see from the man’s perspective. It would be blasphemy on my part if I didn’t mention the legendary Colin Firth’s name at least once in the hospital. The actor is in his usual fine form as Jim Swire, which is a given. 

Anyway, back to the original question: the story takes a strange turn when, upon being convinced about Megrahi’s innocence, the doctor starts seeking justice for the Libyan national. We return to the very first scene of the show, where Dr. Swire asks the question to Megrahi, who immediately responds with a rousing ‘no.’ Jim clarifies he needed to hear it from Baset’s own mouth. Their first interaction is kind of difficult as Jim confesses that he feels guilty over Baset’s current situation, while the latter reminds him that he is only doing this to find the truth about Flora. Despite all the tension, the two of them eventually become friends. Not only does Jim keep visiting Baset in prison regularly, but he also starts helping with Baset’s defense for his appeal to re-evaluate the verdict. Of course, that sort of turns him into a madman in everyone’s eyes, as they just cannot fathom how on earth he is doing all this for the man ‘who killed his daughter.’ One of the most important aspects of the show is how people tend to move on with their lives after a court verdict, without giving a thought as to whether it is actually logical or not. Jim Swire, of course, is an exception who is more focused on getting to the truth than accepting a quick-fix solution in the name of justice. Quite naturally, it affects his life and also his marriage to a great extent. A distance appears between him and his other two children—Cathy and William. It becomes doubly hard for Jane, who keeps asking her husband to drop the quest as it is getting embarrassing for her. We see Jane feeling visibly uncomfortable when she and Jim attend a memorial service for the PAN AM victims, as most of the people there see Jim as a public enemy. 

Meanwhile, after years of toiling hard with his appeal and not getting any positive result, Baset is diagnosed with prostate cancer. His legal team suggests he should opt for getting tested by a medical professional who would likely say he has less than three months to live. That would allow him to travel back to his home country—Libya—without dropping the appeal. Because Scottish law, in general, doesn’t allow prisoner transfer to other countries when the prisoner in question has an ongoing appeal. To everyone’s (including Jim’s) surprise, Baset drops the appeal and returns to Libya. That practically means the mastermind behind the Lockerbie bombing is getting released by the British government—a decision that gets condemned by everyone. This is, of course, a fruit of the infamous ‘deal of the desert’ between then-prime minister Tony Blair and General Gaddafi—at least that’s what the show hints at. Upon returning to Libya, Megrahi receives kind of a hero’s welcome, which further disturbs the families of the victims and even confuses Jim. He now starts questioning his own belief, whether to trust what Baset said to him or not. He also fails to reach Baset over the telephone. Realizing her husband is going to lose his mind over this, Jane suggests he travel to Libya and visit Baset. And that’s exactly what he does.

Who was really behind the Lockerbie bombing?

Despite mainly adapting the text from Jim Swire’s book, the show chooses not to do anything controversial by pointing fingers directly at someone (that would have been foolish, to be honest). Upon visiting Baset in Libya, Jim gets to know that the Libyan man was indeed pressured by his government to drop the appeal. As a reward for that, he got to return home and is now spending his final days with the people he loves. Baset also shares some extremely classified documents that he got hold of, which proves his innocence further. It is implied that even the Libyan government was perfectly aware of the whole conspiracy and used him as a pawn for political gain. Back in prison, Baset used to regret that he was going to go down as the man who bombed the Lockerbie plane, but in the end, it didn’t matter to him. Despite Firth’s towering presence, Lockerbie as a show is pretty ordinary as it doesn’t do anything other than following a standard dramatization of true story format. But the final scene between Baset and Jim, where the two re-evaluate everything and the doctor leaves content with the belief that Baset was innocent, is a standout here. Not to mention, Baset also makes Jim realize the importance of the living around him and why he shouldn’t abandon them (which, he sort of has).

That doesn’t mean Jim Swire finds peace, though. But he accepts that the truth may never be found and stops turning his back on his family, which makes everyone happy. Murray is also not convinced with Baset being innocent, as he tells Jim. However, the two of them agree that they’re going to keep trying to find out what actually happened, together or individually. 

Peacock’s Lockerbie ends with Jim having a good time with his family at the beach, where he breaks down with his wife—most likely because even after all these years, he still hasn’t managed to find justice for Flora. Firth is phenomenal in this scene, by the way, as you’d expect. As the screen goes dark, we are informed that till today there hasn’t been a separate investigation commissioned by the British government for the Lockerbie bombing. Considering this was the biggest terrorist attack the country had ever experienced, this doesn’t seem right.

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