Pupils hold seated remembrance event for Lockerbie bombing victims

A group of Lockerbie Academy students have marked the 37th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am 103 by staging a remembrance event at their school.

Students sat on 11 chairs with each seat representing one of the 11 Lockerbie residents who were among the 270 victims of the terrorist attack.

The event also remembered Lockerbie teenager Andrew McClune, who died in the US in 2002 while taking part in a scholarship set up after the bombing.

The pupils were inspired to host the "sitting in solidarity" event following a recent trip to the US to visit Syracuse University, which lost 35 students on the flight.

Every year at the university, 35 students represent the Syracuse victims by sitting on chairs laid out in the formation of where they would have be seated on the plane.

The tribute is part of week-long remembrance events that take place at the university in New York State every October.

Lockerbie Academy was holding its event for the first time.

The tribute lasted 12 minutes - a minute for each of the 11 victims and one for Andrew McClune, who died after falling from a seventh-floor window while studying at Syracuse University.

Pupil Yvie Stewart's father and grandfather saw the aircraft explode over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 from their farm.

"They went out to see what was going on and ended up finding three victims," she said.

"They were a 21-year-old woman and a wee baby but they never found out the identity of the last one."

Jonathan Brandt said it was "heart-warming" his school had formed a relationship with Syracuse University around a time of devastating tragedy.

Grace Key added: "To just sit for those 12 minutes and think about those people that we have lost from our community, it really makes it more of an impact to those sitting and those who gathered to watch us."

James Johnson said some of those who died had been pupils at the school, a fact that made the remembrance event more emotive.

Acting head teacher Kerry Currie added: "It is always going to be part of our history so it's really important we understand what happened."

Last month, the trial of a Libyan accused of building the bomb that destroyed the airliner was delayed for a second time.

The case against Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir al-Marimi, known as Mas'ud, was due to get under way in Washington in May but was postponed to 20 April next year.

In July his lawyers requested a delay, saying they needed more time to consider all the evidence from the 37-year-old case.

Mas'ud has denied constructing and priming the bomb.