Inquiry demand

Demand grows for full Lockerbie inquiry, writes Magnus Linklater in the London Times:

Pressure is growing for a full public inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster, in response to new evidence that suggests a miscarriage of justice took place in the trial of the Libyan convicted of the bombing. A judicial review of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s conviction is to decide this week whether to refer his case back to the Appeal Court. If it does, al-Megrahi would almost certainly be cleared.

“Where that would leave the Scottish judicial system and the Scottish police, God knows,” said Tam Dalyell, the former MP who has long campaigned for an inquiry. Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the 1988 bombing, described al-Megrahi’s conviction as “one of the most disgraceful miscarriages of justice in history”.

The Libyan is serving a life sentence in a Scottish jail for his part in placing a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over the town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people. The repercussions of a referral for Britain and the US would be far-reaching. The trial of al-Megrahi and his co-accused, Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was the most expensive criminal prosecution carried out by Britain. It was held in a specially constituted court in The Netherlands and is estimated to have cost about £80 million.

..The prosecution case was that the two Libyans smuggled the bomb aboard a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was switched to a connecting flight, via Heathrow, to New York. In the course of the trial, weaknesses in the prosecution case emerged...Now new evidence has been produced to challenge further the safety of the conviction: — The Maltese shopkeeper, whose identification of al-Meg-rahi was crucial, changed his story several times in the course of inquiries, first identifying Abu Talb as the man who had entered his shop, then contradicting his evidence about individual items he had sold...

Update: Unpicking the Lockerbie truth, from UK Sunday Times; Revealed, from Scotland's Sunday Herald