THE appeal by the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man to be convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, opens today before Scotland’s most senior judge Lord Carloway, the Lord Justice General – along with the Lord Justice Clerk Lady Dorian, Lord Menzies, Lord Glennie and Lord Woolman.
It comes days after Carloway upheld a secrecy order signed by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to withhold intelligence documents which are believed to implicated a Palestinian terrorist group in the atrocity.
Pan Am flight 103 was on its way from London to New York on December 21, 1988, when it was blow up over Lockerbie. A total of 270 people died. Megrahi died from cancer in Tripoli in 2012 after being released early on compassionate grounds from Greenock prison in 2009.
The documents, thought to be central to this appeal lodged by Megrahi’s son, are believed to have been sent to the UK Government by King Hussein of Jordan alleging that a Jordanian intelligence agent in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian-General Command (PFLP-GC) made the device. Many of those who believe Megrahi was innocent blame this group for the attack, carried out on behalf of the Tehran regime in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian airliner by the US warship USS Vincennes months before Lockerbie.
Raab signed a public interest immunity (PII) certificate to keep the documents secret.
Carloway’s ruling was revealed late on Friday, upholding Raab’s order, even though the Foreign Secretary agreed they were relevant to the appeal. He agreed with the Government that much of the material in the documents was known to Megrahi’s lawyers at his trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, as were claims about the part played by Khreesat.
Scottish Government lawyers had said they believed the documents should be disclosed.
Carloway said: “The documents had been provided in confidence to the government. Their disclosure would reduce the willingness of the state, which produced the documents, to confide information and to co-operate with the UK.”
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