“Allen Feraday should not be allowed to present himself as an expert.”
Lord Chief Justice
July 2005
June 30, 2025 — Nearly four decades after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland — a tragedy that claimed 270 lives — investigators now claim to have extracted DNA from items linked to the suitcase believed to have housed the bomb. Among these items are fragments of luggage lining and the now-infamous black umbrella. Some ‘experts’ and former FBI officials have hailed this as a major forensic breakthrough. But in truth, nothing will come of it — and this “evidence” is not even fit for court. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today
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A Manufactured Narrative — The media quickly embraced the idea that this DNA could finally tie Abu Agila Masud — the Libyan intelligence operative accused of constructing the device — to the bombing.
But as I argued in my last post, this is little more than a psychological maneuver. No reliable DNA identification will result from this effort.
In fact, the material is so compromised, and its history so convoluted, that its use in any court of law should be outright dismissed.
The Umbrella That Wasn’t There
A key piece of this so-called breakthrough is the black umbrella — said to be found among the remnants of the suitcase. But this umbrella’s evidentiary trail has long been questioned, and for good reason.
According to forensic notes, Allen Feraday claimed to examine the umbrella on October 3rd, 1989. However, during the Lockerbie trial, Richard Keen QC pointed out that this was impossible: records clearly show that the umbrella was present at the RARDE lab only between January 16 and February 8, 1989.
So how could Feraday examine an item that wasn’t there?
A Pattern of Forensic Improvisation
This isn’t a minor oversight. It’s part of a long-standing pattern of inconsistencies and forensic sleight-of-hand that has plagued the Lockerbie case since the beginning.
The credibility of Allen Feraday himself is not above question. In 2005, the Lord Chief Justice stated unequivocally that Feraday should not be allowed to present himself as an expert.
And yet, the Lockerbie case continues to rest on the kind of forensic storytelling he helped shape.
Conclusion
The black umbrella didn’t make sense in 1989, and it makes even less sense now. No amount of DNA rhetoric can repair a broken evidentiary chain or retroactively authenticate compromised artifacts.
This is not forensic progress. It is forensic propaganda — another attempt to salvage a narrative that continues to unravel under serious scrutiny.
And there’s more. A good friend and experienced Lockerbie investigator personally discussed the suitcase lining with representatives of the manufacturing company in the U.S. Their conclusion was unambiguous:
“This piece does not come from a Samsonite suitcase.”
That finding, from the very people who built the luggage supposedly used to conceal the bomb, shatters one of the case’s most fundamental claims.
If the lining wasn’t from a Samsonite suitcase — the same brand investigators have long insisted was the bomb carrier — then what are we even looking at?
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Lockerbie Trial Transcripts: The Umbrella Cross-Examination
3270
1 LORD SUTHERLAND: Mr. Keen.
2 CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. KEEN:
3 Q Mr. Feraday, as a consequence of your
4 employment at the forensics explosives laboratory of
5 RARDE, I take it you would frequently have been called
6 upon to express your opinion with respect to material
7 presented to you for forensic examination?
8 A That’s correct, sir. Yes.
(…)
20 Q And do we see that it is a note of an
21 examination of an item designated as PK/206?
22 A That’s correct, sir. Yes.
23 Q Which is an examination on 3rd October
24 1989 of part of the canopy of a black umbrella?
25 A Yes, sir.
3317
1 Q Could we then have on the screen
2 Production 114 for PK/206.
3 My Lords, this is the log in respect of the
4 luggage, which has already been referred to in
5 evidence.
6 If we look to the left-hand side, at the
7 bottom of that log, Mr. Feraday, we can see the
8 reference to PK/206, can we not?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q And it’s described as a piece of cloth
11 and wire, damaged?
12 A Yes, sir.
13 Q And if you go back to your examination
14 notes at page 2, we can see that that was the
15 identification on the label?
16 A Yes, sir.
17 Q And if we then look along to the
18 right-hand side under the heading “Time, Date, Out,”
19 and if we can magnify that part on the screen. That is
20 further to the right and magnify.
21 We can see that it is noted as being to RARDE
22 lab, 16/1/89. Do you see that?
23 A I think that’s what it says, sir, yes.
24 Q If we then scroll further to the right
25 under “Date Returned,” we can see the date “8/2/89”?
3318
1 A Yes, sir.
2 Q Can you see that, Mr. Feraday?
3 A Yes, sir. Is that the one with the K —
4 Q Indeed.
5 A — next to it? Yes, sir.
6 Q Now, there is no further entry in the
7 log in respect of that item, is there?
8 A There doesn’t appear to be. I mean, I
9 haven’t —
10 Q Can you explain how it is that you were
11 able to examine that item on 3rd October ’89 if it was
12 at RARDE laboratory from 16th January to 8th February
13 1989?
Sources
Evidence that casts doubt on who brought down Flight 103
The Guardian (June 17, 2007)
“Crucial to the prosecution’s case was the use of expert witnesses to make the link between Megrahi and the circuit board timer which was said to have been part of the bomb’s detonator.
Evidence considered by the commission cast doubt on the credibility of the three key forensic scientists used by the prosecution during the trial to make the connection between the timer and Megrahi. One of these, Allen Feraday, also gave evidence against defendants who have since had their convictions quashed. After one case, in July 2005, the Lord Chief Justice said Feraday should not be allowed to present himself as an expert.
Another of the scientists who gave evidence in the trial, Dr Thomas Hayes, was involved in the case of the Maguire Seven, imprisoned in 1976 for handling explosives shortly after the Guildford bombings. They also won their appeal after major flaws in forensic science.
The involvement of a third expert witness has also been called into question. The FBI’s Thomas Thurman identified the fragment of circuit board as part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives and as manufactured by Swiss firm Mebo, which supplied the component only to Libya and the East German Stasi. At one point Megrahi was such a regular visitor to Mebo that he had his own office in the firm’s headquarters. The testimony enabled Libya – and Megrahi – to be placed at the centre of the investigation. Thurman, however, has subsequently been accused of doctoring scientific reports.”
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Lockerbie DNA Evidence: The Umbrella That Wasn’t There
What shocked me most was that I thought that all that had been gone through on Guildford and Birmingham, the one thing that had been achieved was that nobody would be convicted again on bad science. But yet in the Lockerbie case, it isn’t just the same bad science, it is the same bad scientists.”
Gareth Peirce
Solicitor for the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six
Intel Today 