Scotland: Appeal possible for Libyan convicted of Lockerbie bombing

Appeal

London, March 11, 2020 (dpa/NAN) Scottish legal experts on Wednesday said the conviction of a late Libyan man for the 1988 bombing of passenger flight Pan Am 103 over the town of Lockerbie may have been flawed.

The legal experts said it was possible for the family to open a new appeal.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty of involvement in the bombing, and a second Libyan was acquitted, after a trial in 2001 by a court in The Hague operating under Scottish law.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said it had referred Megrahi’s case to Scotland’s High Court of Justiciary for determination.

“As a result of the commission’s decision, Mr Megrahi’s family is now entitled to instruct an appeal against his conviction on January 31, 2001.

“Also for the murders of the 243 passengers and the 16 crew on board Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York, and 11 residents of Lockerbie, on December 21, 1988,’’ it stated.

Megrahi was sentenced to 27 years in prison but released in 2009 after he was diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer.

The former Libyan intelligence officer continued to protest his innocence until his death in May 2012, but Scottish prosecutors had insisted their evidence against him was sound.

In 2015, Scottish prosecutors said they had identified two new Libyan suspects and asked Libyan authorities to allow police from Scotland and the U.S. to interview them in Tripoli. (dpa/NAN)

HLM/YEE

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Edited by Hadiza Mohammed/Emmanuel Yashim