Premiership of Gordon Brown into further talks over the issue. Finally, after a Commons Home Affairs Committee meeting between campaigners, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office on 19 May, Brown announced to the House of Commons on 20 May that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith would make a statement on the issue the following day. Smith subsequently announced that all Gurkha veterans who had served four years or more in the British Army before 1997 would be allowed to settle in Britain. In the days following the release and high-profile return to Libya of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in August 2009, speculation
The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie The film quotes Tiny Rowland as disclosing that Pik Botha told him that he and 22 South African delegates were going to New York for the Namibian Independence Ratification Ceremony and were all booked on the Pan Am flight 103. They were given a warning from a source that could not be ignored. Botha and 6 others managed to get on an earlier flight, but the remaining 16 stayed in London and missed the official event. "The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie" was to have been shown at the London Film Festival in November 1994 but was withdrawn at the