Campaigners welcome '˜momentous' review of Lockerbie bomber's conviction

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, right, is escorted by a police officer to court in Tripoli, Libya, in 1992. Picture: Jockel Fink

Campaigners for the man found guilty of carrying out the 1988 Lockerbie bombing have welcomed the 'momentous' decision to review his conviction.

Megrahi, who died in 2012, was jailed in 2001 for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which killed 270 people.

The SCCRC said yesterday that it believed Megrahi had abandoned an earlier appeal because he thought it would result in him being released from prison and allowed to return home to Libya.

The former intelligence officer was released from custody in 2009 with terminal prostate cancer and died in Tripoli three years later.

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi leaves a police van before he boards a plane at Glasgow Airport in 2009, after he was released on compassionate grounds by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

Gerard Sinclair, the chief executive of the SCCRC, said: “In any application where an applicant has previously chosen to abandon an appeal against conviction the commission will, at the first stage of its process, look carefully at the reasons why the appeal was abandoned and consider whether it is in the interests of justice to allow a further review of the conviction.

“The commission has now investigated this particular matter and interviewed the key personnel who were involved in the process at the time the previous appeal was abandoned in 2009. The commission has also sought access to the relevant materials and has recovered the vast majority of these, including the defence papers which were not provided during its previous review.

“Having considered all the available evidence the commission believes that Mr Megrahi, in abandoning his appeal, did so as he held a genuine and reasonable belief that such a course of action would result in him being able to return home to Libya at a time when he was suffering from terminal cancer.”

He added: “On that basis, the commission has decided that it is in the interests of justice to accept the current application for a full review of his conviction.”

Wreckage of the nose-cone and cockpit near the Borders town of Lockerbie, where Pan Am flight 103, a 747 Jumbo jet, crashed after a bomb exploded on board in December 1988.

A previous review of Megrahi’s conviction led to the case being referred to the High Court for an appeal in 2007 after the SCCRC determined there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

That appeal was abandoned with Megrahi’s release from prison on what the Scottish Government called compassionate grounds.

Police inquiry into Lockerbie bombing claims coming to conclusion

The latest application has been brought by members of Megrahi’s family, including his wife and son, and has allowed the SCCRC access to the original appeal documents.

In a statement released on behalf of the family yesterday, solicitor Aamer Anwar said: “To date both the UK Government and Scottish Government have claimed that they played no role in pressuring Mr Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. It was alleged that this was fundamentally untrue.