I WHOLLY agree with Iain AD Mann (Letters, May 18) that the handling of the farrago surrounding the Pan Am atrocity leaves a stain on both Scotland’s Government and its judiciary. The shredding of prosecution witnesses and forensic evidence at the original trial by the famous defence advocate Richard Keen has long cast doubt over the verdict.

Abolghassem Mesbahi, an intelligence chief reporting to the Iranian president before his defection, confirmed the attack was in retaliation for the Vincennes incident and an Al Jazeera documentary produced by the much-respected investigative reporters Bill Cran and Christopher Jeans backed him up.

In fact the original CIA investigation had believed the motivation was the loss of Iran Air 655 and that Ahmed Jibril, the Syrian head of the PFLP-GC, was the mastermind. It suddenly changed tack when the Gulf War made it essential to keep Iran and Syria on board and the West’s default patsy – Gadaffi's Libya – became the improbable suspect.

Dr Jim Swire of the British victims’ families has long argued the Iranian scenario and it would certainly clear the name of that most unlikely “terrorist”: the late Abdelbaset Ali Mohmend al-Megrahi.

Rev Dr John Cameron,

10 Howard Place, St Andrews.