Produced, written, and directed by Allan Francovich and financed by Tiny Rowland, the film was released by Hemar Enterprises in November 1994.
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.
The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie was to have been shown at the London Film Festival in November 1994 but was withdrawn at the last minute under threat of a libel action by Michael Hurley, a retired US Drug Enforcement Administration operative.
Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died on the flight, said he had "never felt so angry in my life" and Pamela Dix, who lost a brother, argued that "the festival should have been brave enough to show the film.
[13] In 2006, Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger argued that the Francovich documentary had succeeded in destroying "the official truth that Libya was responsible for the sabotage of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988.
[15] Her Majesty's Government dismissed the document, which it said was highly redacted and based upon second and third-hand sources, as adding no new information, while the Scottish Office argued that it was an old story.
[16] The embassy had sent a letter to The Guardian – and, the newspaper assumed, to other news organisations as well – which attacked the credibility of three of the film's witnesses and argued that The Maltese Double Cross was "Libyan-financed."
The Crown Office did publicly accuse one key witness in the film, Oswald LeWinter, of being a "notorious hoaxer" and another, Juval Aviv, of being a mere El Al airline security guard – not a member of the intelligence community as he claimed.
The aim is to smear people in the film in order to divert attention from the mass of evidence that supports our claims....The British and US authorities insist that the Lockerbie case is still open.
"[25] A number of families in the United Kingdom – some of whom had seen the film screened in the House of Commons – welcomed the broadcast and maintained that they were highly sceptical of the mainstream account.
Reverend John Mosey, who lost a daughter, said he had been suspicious of the mainstream line and that the film "justified, with a lot more information, what some of us have felt for three and a half years."
"[27] In an interview with The Guardian in December 1993, Swire said that he "had good reason to believe Coleman's drug theories" even though they were used by Pan American World Airways lawyers to try to deflect responsibility from the company and "'We may be faced with the decision of whether we want the money or the truth.
"[28] The Cohens believed that Swire had suggested that the families of survivors who had opposed the creation of The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie were solely interested in collecting settlement money in the civil suit against Pan Am.
[28] Francovich suffered a fatal heart attack in a Customs area at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, on 17 April 1997 whilst entering the United States from England; he was 56.