Valletta, Malta - Malta had "no connection" with the Lockerbie disaster, Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg said Sunday, as the world comes to grips with the release of the man charged with planting the bomb at the island's airport in 1988.

Speaking to The Sunday Times of Malta, Borg, who is also foreign affairs minister, said: "Malta was not involved in this incident. The bomb never left from Malta."

The connection with Malta - and subsequently with convicted Libyan Abdel Basset al-Megrahi - was made when police recovered items of baby clothing bearing a label made by a Maltese company from the wreckage. The clothing, traced to a Maltese shop, was found in the suitcase believed to have been carrying the bomb.

Al-Megrahi was convicted mainly as a result of the testimony of a Maltese shop owner who identified him as the man to whom he had sold the clothes in which the bomb was wrapped. Doubts have, however, always been cast on the testimony of the Maltese shopowner.

Asked if he believed al-Megrahi was innocent, Borg said: "The Scottish Review Court said there were sufficient grounds which could have led to the reopening of the case. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened."

Al-Megrahi dropped his second appeal and returned to Libya on compassionate grounds - he has terminal prostate cancer - on Thursday after being held in a Scottish prison, where he served eight years of a life sentence for the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland which killed 270 people.

Former Air Malta chairman Albert Mizzi and Wilfred Borg, who was ground operations manager at the airport at the time of the incident, also denied the Malta connection.

Mizzi said he never believed the bomb was planted in Malta, adding he is more inclined to believe the device was planted in Germany.

On the other hand, Borg, who had formed part of the investigations, maintained all 55 pieces of luggage on board the Air Malta flight were physically counted and certified. The Air Malta flight purportedly carried the bomb in an unaccompanied luggage before it was transferred at Frankfurt airport onto the doomed Pan Am flight 103.

Borg insisted no unaccompanied bags were loaded on the flight and the 39 passengers each retrieved their respective luggage at the destination. He also insisted security systems in place at the Malta airport at the time not only met international standards but also exceeded those in place at many major airports. (dpa)