Lonhro finances Lockerbie film

DR JIM Swire, father of one of the Lockerbie bomb victims, last night confirmed that a company controlled by Roland 'Tiny' Rowland was financing a film about the disaster.

Mr Rowland's involvement in the project was being watched closely because of his considerable business interests in Libya and his intervention recently in appointing a lawyer to represent the two Libyans accused of planting the bomb which destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

The Financial Times discloses today that the Libyan government and Lonrho, Mr Rowland's international group of companies, have set up a shell company in the Caribbean with pounds 633,000 to fund the film. Funding is reportedly coming from Metropole Hotels, which is two-thirds owned by Lonrho and one-third by the Libyan Arab Finance company, a Libyan government investment vehicle. The film is being made by Allan Francovich, a respected producer of documentaries.

New sanctions are due to be imposed against Libya by the UN in two days to force it to hand over Abel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, the two men suspected of planting the bomb.

Last night, Dr Swire, whose daughter, Flora, 24, died in the disaster, said: 'I have never subscribed to the official version that Libya was behind the bombing, so I see nothing wrong in Col Gadaffi providing money for an independent third party to rummage around in the evidence and come up with the truth.'