VARIOUS: Libyan to learn this week on Lockerbie appeal bid

Record ID: 356152

  • Title: VARIOUS: Libyan to learn this week on Lockerbie appeal bid
  • Date: 27th June 2007
  • Summary: (W1) CAMP ZEIST, NETHERLANDS (FILE - JANUARY 2001) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR SCOTTISH COURT IN THE NETHERLANDS / PRESS GATHERED OUTSIDE POLICE STANDING OUTSIDE COURT COURT SKETCHES FROM HEARING WHERE MEGRAHI WAS FOUND GUILTY
  • Embargoed: 12th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA4LIDZV7TZ7PW37QTKH6USF41U
  • Story Text: The only person convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, will find out on Thursday (June 28) if he can take his case to Scotland's High Court.
    The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body which considers alleged miscarriages of justice, will issue its decision in writing.
    The commission has the power to refer a case to the High Court if it believes a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
    Two hundred and seventy people -- 259 on the plane and 11 on the ground -- were killed when a Pan Am airliner, flight 103 from London to New York, was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.
    Megrahi is serving a life prison sentence in Scotland after being convicted of the bombing by a Scottish court, sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, in January 2001.
    He lost his appeal the following year in March 2002, when Lord Justice General Lord Cullen told an impassive al-Megrahi, "We have concluded that none of the grounds for appeal is well founded. The appeal will accordingly be refused. This brings proceedings to an end. The court will now rise." The Libyan was told he must serve at least 27 years of the life sentence. He has always proclaim his innocence.
    Libya told the United Nations in August 2003 that it accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials, and agreed to pay compensation to victims' relatives.
    Some relatives and observers of the trial, where a second Libyan man was acquitted, have questioned the outcome and voiced suspicions that the real perpetrators were the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), supported by Iran as revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a U.S. warship in July 1988.
    Some relatives believe the United States was keen to shift blame on to Libya, and away from Syria and Iran, in order not to derail efforts to free U.S. hostages being held by Iranian-backed groups at the time of the Lockerbie bombing.
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