Lord Fraser of Carmyllie has accused Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the Lockerbie bombing, of suffering from Stockholm syndrome ("Swire attacks claims", The Herald, December 22).

When, six weeks before indictments were issued against Abdelbaset al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the names of the four Libyans who were to be charged with the UTA aircraft bombing of 1989 were made public by Juge Bruguire, the French examining magistrate, Jim Swire said to me on the phone that none of them was on his radar, and he doubted any connection of Libya to Lockerbie.

Far from being captured by the syndrome, Dr Swire has had a healthy disregard for Megrahi's guilt from the outset.

Lord Fraser was always keen to prosecute the Lockerbie two himself. Could we fairly accuse the ex- Lord Advocate of anti-Stockhom syndrome; of a falling into "prosecutor's fallacy"?

What we must understand about his intemperate remarks on Dr Swire's mental condition, made so inappropriately on the occasion of the sad anniversary of the bombing, is the shallow pretence of Megrahi's guilt that has fallen away for all those who have thought independently about the "Lockerbie process", such as Professor Hans Koechler, the UN observer at Zeist. But the Scottish judiciary cannot collectively or individually understand that over this prosecution it was soundly hoodwinked.

Charles Norrie, Brother of Tony Norrie, who died in 1989 on UT-772, probably the result of a Libyan terrorist attack.

15 Canonbury Grove, Islington, London.

Lord Fraser's attack on Dr Jim Swire is alarming. Dr Swire sat in on Megrahi's entire trial and found its outcome unconvincing. In a democracy, he is entitled to say so without having aspersions cast upon him.

For that trial to take place in the first place, the rules of Scots law were altered to accommodate the competing needs of politicians and governments, with the result that there was no jury of ordinary citizens. Bizarrely, that task was left to the judges sitting in on the case, including Lord Fraser.

This arrangement has been roundly condemned by legal scholars including the UN-appointed Hans Koechler.

If Lord Fraser would not object to the imputation, many of us feel that it is not Dr Swire who "has perhaps got a bit too close to what's going on".

David Petrie, Lecturer in English, University of Verona, Via S Vitale 7, Verona.