Gaddafi son raps 'greedy' relatives

Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi said the Lockerbie families had traded with "the blood of their sons and daughters" during negotiations over pay-outs for the deaths of loved ones.

Mr al-Gaddafi, who is seen by many as likely to succeed his father, also told BBC2's The Conspiracy Files: Lockerbie that the Libyan government took responsibility for Britain's worst terrorist attack only to get international sanctions lifted.

"You have to ask the families of the victims," he said. "The negotiation with them, it was very terrible and very materialistic and was very greedy. They were asking for more money and more money and more money.

"I think they were very greedy and I think they were trading with the blood of their sons and daughters."

Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the atrocity, said the compensation received by relatives could never make up for the loss of loved ones.

In the same programme, the film-makers said police failed to pass on information that could have affected the outcome of the Lockerbie trial. The information could have affected the credibility of key evidence but was not passed to the defence, the documentary claimed.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi is serving a life sentence for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, which killed 270 people.

In a letter published in the Herald in Glasgow, Dr Swire wrote: "I just wish that the needs of the relatives, namely a thirst for the truth and for justice, would be attended to, rather than an alleged hunger for money. So far as many relatives I know would say, we would gladly repay any 'compensation' money if we could just have our loved ones back.

"Financial 'compensation' must remain in its inverted commas. Money cannot buy our families back."