Lockerbie Bomber Should Not Have Been Convicted: Legal Team

Glasgow, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Nov, 2020 ) :Abdelbaset Mohmet Al-Megrahi should not have been found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, his family's legal team said on Tuesday, as a posthumous appeal began against his conviction for the attack on a Pan Am flight that killed 270 people.

The former Libyan intelligence officer was convicted of mass murder by three judges at a special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in 2001 and was jailed for life.

Megrahi, who denied involvement, was released from prison on health grounds in 2009 and died in Tripoli three years later aged 60.

His family won an appeal to Scotland's highest criminal court after an independent case review body said earlier this year that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

Central to the original prosecution case was that Megrahi was responsible for buying the brown Samsonite suitcase used to plant the bomb in the ill-fated Boeing 747's cargo hold.

But the family's lawyer Claire Mitchell said they had not proved that Megrahi was the person who bought the clothing found in the suitcase at a shop in Malta on December 7, 1988.

Nor had lawyers established beyond reasonable doubt how the suitcase came to be transferred from Malta via Frankfurt and onto the Pan Am flight from London Heathrow, she added.

As such, the evidence did not reach the required standard, she told the judges.

"It is submitted in this case that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned the verdict that it did, namely the conviction of Mr Megrahi," she added.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in March referred the case to the High Court of Justiciary on the grounds that an "unreasonable verdict" was returned.

It also highlighted "non-disclosure" of evidence to Megrahi's defence team.

Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie as it flew from London to New York on December 21, 1988, killing 270 including 11 people on the ground.

It remains Britain's worst terrorist attack.

Megrahi's family maintain there remain widespread doubts about his conviction, arguing the US and UK governments have covered up the truth about who was responsible.

"The Megrahis regard their father as the 271st victim of Lockerbie," their lawyer Aamer Anwar said before the appeal began.

"Finally there is hope that we are coming to the end of a very long journey in nearly 32 years of their struggle for truth and justice," he added.