"The Lockerbie bombing in 1988 - which many commentators and analysts maintain was the work of Iran in conjunction with the Syrians, carried out in retaliation for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz in July 1988 by US missiles - came just two years after the story broke that officials within US intelligence and the US Government had conducted secret arms deals with Iran in an attempt to obtain the release of American hostages being held by Iranian backed militias in Lebanon. The money paid for the weapons was used to fund Contra death squads then operating in Nicaragua. In March 1988, Colonel Oliver North and John Poindexter, a former naval officer and National Security Advisor within the Reagan administration, were convicted in relation to the scandal, known to the world and to history as Iran-Contra.
Many to this day believe that it was in the interests of the US Government to conceal Iran’s involvement in the Lockerbie bombing in order to conceal the extent of the Reagan administration’s involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, which Reagan vigorously maintained he knew nothing about."