Lockerbie bombing: Scotland allows Megrahi family appeal
Written by News on 11/03/2020
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review says the family of Abdelbaset al Megrahi can appeal his conviction over the Lockerbie bombing.
The Libyan intelligence officer was the only person convicted of the attack on Pam Am flight 103, which was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.
In 2001 he was found guilty of the murder of all 243 passengers and 16 crew on the flight, as well as the murder of 11 people in Lockerbie.
He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years.
Megrahi died in 2012 after being released from prison on compassionate grounds.
His family can now bring an appeal to Scotland’s High Court of Justiciary, after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
The commission said that “no reasonable trial court could have accepted that Megrahi was identified as the purchaser” of items that were inside a suitcase used as a bomb in the attack.
It also found that the Crown “ought to have disclosed to the defence a statement and a police report concerning possession of photographs of Mr Megrahi” by a Maltese shopkeeper whose evidence helped convict him.
Megrahi’s family submitted the appeal, which is supported by the families of some of the people killed in the attack, three years ago.
(c) Sky News 2020: Lockerbie bombing: Scotland allows Megrahi family appeal
