film was partially funded by Libya and used a number of "confidence tricksters" as sources. After the Special Broadcasting Service of Australia agreed to screen the film in its entirety, Channel 4 re-entered negotiations with Francovich and reached a compromise to broadcast a slimmed down, 92-minute version of the film which cut material that could have caused legal problems. The shortened version of the film was ultimately shown on Channel 4 on 11 May 1995, but some American relatives of the victims again criticised the decision and accused Channel 4 of giving air-time to what they claimed as "Libyan propaganda." A Channel 4 spokeswoman said the decision to broadcast the film was based on the view that it needed to be shown to a wider public. The film was prevented from being shown on television or cinemas in the United States, but eventually played at the Pacific Film Archive in July 1998. Reaction Though it was never released commercially, the film garnered a great deal of attention in the British press, from the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, and from family members whose loved ones died in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing. Reviews After The Maltese Double Cross was broadcast on television, it received several reviews in mainstream British newspapers which were generally negative. Writing in The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries suggested that the complex argument of the film was "ill presented" and that "if future documentarists need an example of how not to make a film about complicated intrigues, they should watch The Maltese Double Cross." In his review of the film in The Independent, Thomas Sutcliffe noted that "Francovich wasn't exactly a dispassionate seeker after truth," and that although the film raised "some real questions about the official account…it didn't replace it with any reliable truth of its own." Similarly, Lynn Truss of The Times noted that the film had an important and controversial story to tell, but that the "obfuscations of the commentary and editing were unpardonable". 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." Governmental criticism The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom and their respective agencies strongly contested the conclusions of the film as well as the character and honesty of