IT is one of the longest "live" investigations in Scots history, and at its centre is the small Borders town of Dumfries.
Although Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001, the Crown Office and police have persistently maintained that they could not comment in detail on the case because it was "live".
The case may have lain dormant for some time, but now the investigation team has been revived with a significant boost. A group of nearly 10 police officers and civilian staff are reviewing the case in anticipation of a breakthrough as a result of the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
Earlier this month The Herald revealed that Frank Mulholland, the Lord Advocate, had visited Tripoli to smooth the way for police officers to travel to Libya and scour the capital's official records and government documents in the hope of finding definitive evidence of who was behind the bombing of Pan Am 103 in December 1988.
Officials have said the focus is on "accomplices", but campaigners have questioned why the investigation has not reviewed the new evidence unearthed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and others.
A spokesman for Dumfries and Galloway Police said: "There have been officers and staff working on this since the change in regime in Libya in order to prepare to move forward. This is a live investigation."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article