Dimensions
146 x 229 x 25mm
One Bomb. One Plane. 270 Lives. The History-Making Struggle for Justice after Pan Am 103.
An epic and gripping saga about the search for truth in the aftermath of the Pan Am flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, and how the legal system brought justice to the victims.
Bill Clinton called it "an attack against America", but after Libyan agents smuggled a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground, America didn't strike back. Instead, the grieving wives and parents of the victims did the unthinkable - as mere civilians - tried to force Libya to pay for its crime.
Lawyers told them they could never sue Libya in US courts, and they were right. It required changing a bedrock principle of international law, a change that every government in the world feared and fought, including the United States itself.
Working virtually alone at first, Allan Gerson, a former diplomat and prosecutor of Nazi war criminals, took on the case and spent the next eight years on the families' quest for justice.
In this high-stakes game of international power politics and legal manoeuvring, friendships, jobs and reputations were lost, but a precious principle, of accountability under the law, was strengthened and preserved.
