WASHINGTON/CAMP ZEIST, 24 January Lawyers for a former Libyan intelligence agent appealed his conviction in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and asked a Scottish court yesterday to hear new testimony disputing when and where the lethal bomb was placed on board the Pan Am flight.
The appeal hearing opened as the White House denied media reports that Washington is about to make a deal with Libya under which Tripoli will pay the relatives of the Lockerbie victims $6 billion. The deal will also strike off Libya from the list of countries supporting terrorism. White House spokesman Ari Fletcher said the United States will not bargain with Libya. particularly on compensation. Libya did not fully comply with the US demands and the decisions of the Security Council, he added.
At the opening of the hearing at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, defense attorney William Taylor said he wanted to call a witness to testify about a security breach at London’s Heathrow Airport, challenging the conclusion that Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi had placed the bomb on a plane in Malta. The court indicated it might delay ruling on the defense request until hearing more of the evidence.
Al-Megrahi was convicted one year ago of multiple murders for the deaths of 270 people in the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and was sentenced to life in prison. His alleged accomplice, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted. Prosecutor Alan Turnbull said Al-Megrahi’s appeal was materially "insufficient" to overturn the conviction. The hearings at a former US military base converted into a court facility could last several weeks. It is the first time television cameras have been allowed inside a British courtroom.
Before the hearing, Al-Megrahi’s family walked to the courthouse carrying signs in English and Arabic expressing sympathy for the victims of the crash but calling for an acquittal. Al-Megrahi’s daughter, Ghada said she is studying law to defend her father against the unfair verdict.
Lawyers for Al-Megrahi submitted the written grounds for the appeal in June, taking nearly five months to draft the legal reasoning to quash the case against their client. Their arguments were not made public until the appellate hearing began.
Libyan attorney Ibrahim Legwell, advising the Scottish defense team, said he and Al-Megrahi expect to overturn the conviction. "He is fully confident he is innocent," Legwell told BBC television on Tuesday. To quash the conviction, Scottish law requires that the defense prove a "miscarriage of justice" or present significant new evidence that could not have been heard in the earlier trial.
