Lockerbie and The Maltese Double Cross

Lesley Riddoch recalls the first attempts to show THE MALTESE DOUBLE CROSS. The film, derided by many and wholly rejected by the governments involved, suggests what many feel is a more plausible sequence of events and lays the blame for the Pan Am bombing at the door of the PFLP-GC.


First public showing in the UK, the Glasgow Film Theatre, 17.11.94

In 1994 the London Film Festival dropped its planned screening of the Maltese Double Cross – a documentary blaming Iran not Libya. I wondered why. And as Assistant Editor of the 'Scotsman' (newspaper) at the time, I felt an obligation to DO something. After all, Lockerbie, still fresh in Scottish minds six years after the bombing -- was the biggest ever terrorist atrocity on British soil. And back then, there was still no agreement about who was to blame.

So I suggested to the then Scotsman editor Andrew Jaspan that we should arrange to show it instead – and he agreed. That was just the start of the hard work to make it legally possible!

I sat with a reporter for a full week checking claims made by the controversial American film-maker Allan Frankovich.

Scotsman lawyers needed sight of relevant documents and sworn affidavits from interviewees – including one that was finally faxed through by a witness living in hiding in Sweden. After three small edits, the film was "legalled" and ready but our booked venue in Edinburgh had suddenly discovered a double-booking. The Glasgow Film Theatre stepped in -- though they too received phone calls threatening legal action from men purporting to be lawyers for one of the American Drug Enforcement Agency officials named in the film.

Continued here - http://www.lesleyriddoch.co.uk/2009/08/the-maltese-double-cross.html