Kenny MacAskill at Edinburgh Speaker’s Festival

On 21 December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 departed London Heathrow for New York. Shortly after take-off, a bomb detonated, killing all aboard and devastating the small Scottish town of Lockerbie below. Only one man has ever been convicted of the crime: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, though few believe that he acted alone. In 2009, following a request for the prisoner's release on compassionate grounds, the decision to grant or deny that request fell on Scottish cabinet member Kenny MacAskill.

Detailing the build-up to the atrocity and the carnage left in its wake, MacAskill narrates the international investigation that followed and the diplomatic intrigue that saw a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. He describes the controversial release of al-Megrahi, answers how and why it happened - and who was really responsible for the worst terrorist attack to have occurred on British soil before or since.

After practising law, Kenny MacAskill became an SNP politician and Member of the Scottish Parliament 1999−2016, serving as Scotland’s Justice Secretary from 2007 to 2014.

A Q&A session will follow.