"UK airport security condemned"

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Airport security condemned
United Kingdom - The South London Press

  
A Lockerbie campaigner who lost his daughter in the atrocity has
criticised security at Britain's airports in the wake of a fresh lapse.

Dr Jim Swire branded the screening of prospective baggage handlers as
"wholly inadequate" after a reporter posing as an employee smuggled a
fake bomb on to a flight at Birmingham International Airport.

A Government investigation was launched after Sun journalist Anthony
France was waved through security to board the Boeing 757 carrying 220
holidaymakers, despite his work boots containing the explosives setting
off alarms.

Dr Swire told BBC WM: "This shows that the screening of potential
baggage handlers is still wholly inadequate and I think that is very sad
after Lockerbie.

"We have seen wide variations in aviation security since and, while
security can never be perfect, it has to be good.

"Since 9/11, of course, we are told that it has been rebuilt and is very
much more efficient.

"I am afraid that what the Sun has done is reveal very serious
loopholes."

Dr Swire's daughter Flora was a passenger on Pan Am flight 103 which
exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 people on
board and 11 residents in the Scottish town.

According to the Sun, the 200g makeshift device France managed to
smuggle on to the Mallorca-bound Thomas Cook flight was similar to that
used in the Lockerbie bombing.

Libyan security agent Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was jailed for
life in 2001 after being found guilty of the bombing at a
specially-convened Scottish court in the Netherlands.


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