CAMPAIGNERS who believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted for the Lockerbie bombing have said they will continue to fight for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to re-examine the case.
Members of the Justice for Megrahi campaign group, including Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora was among 270 victims of the 1988 atrocity, attended Holyrood today to see their petition to the Scottish Parliament discussed by MSPs on the Justice Committee.
Members of the committee opted to keep to petition open, pending the outcome of Operation Sandwood, Police Scotland's investigation of nine accusations of criminality levelled by the group at Crown, police and forensic officials who worked on the case. Allegations including perversion of the course of justice and perjury. It is hoped that the investigation and Police Scotland report will be finalised by the end of the year.
Members of the Megrahi family are also yet to lodge a formal appeal against his the conviction, with efforts constrained by the turmoil in Libya. Following the hearing, Dr Swire said he had been in touch with the Megrahi family and efforts to submit the paperwork were ongoing.
The group is pushing for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to assess the Police Scotland report, and is not satisfied with the suggestion from the Lord Advocate that a Crown Counsel who has not been involved in the Lockerbie case would deal with this matter if necessary.
It believes that they have effectively been labelled conspiracy theorists by the Crown Office, giving them no confidence that the police report will be looked at fairly.
In a submission to the Justice Committee ahead of the meeting, the group said: "JFM objects in the strongest possible terms to the
Lord Advocates proposal... Over past years a number of serious questions have been raised about the office of the Lord Advocate, the Crown Office and the Scottish Justice System in general. The collapse of the Andy Coulson trial, the hasty decision to take no proceedings in relation to the Bin Lorry accident are but two examples.
"This latest attempt by the Lord Advocate not to surrender his control, despite irrefutable evidence that he should, only serves to provide further focus to these concerns and throw serious doubt on the Crowns internal decision making processes."
Following the hearing, James Robertson, of the campaign group, said: "The petition has been maintained, which we're very happy about, because there are still ongoing issues to be addressed. They've held the petition open for the right reasons."
Recent correspondence had been submitted surrounding the case, regarding questions the campaign group would like to the Justice Committee to ask the Lord Advocate on its behalf.
The convenor of the Justice Committee and member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign, Christine Grahame, said that she would seek permission from the Lord Advocate to release the correspondence into the public domain.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel