Judges have refused the Lockerbie bomber’s family permission to take an appeal against his conviction to the UK’s highest court.
The bombing of Pan Am flight 103, travelling from London to New York on December 21 1988, killed 270 people in Britain’s largest terrorist atrocity.
Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of mass murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years – the only person convicted of the attack.
In January, judges at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh rejected a third appeal against his conviction, which was made by his son.
Megrahi was the only person convicted of the atrocity (Danny Lawson/PA)
Lawyers acting for the Megrahi family then sought permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court, but this was refused by five Scottish judges.
Aamer Anwar, the family’s lawyer, said they will now seek leave to appeal directly to the UK Supreme Court, the final court of appeal for the case.
A written judgment issued on Thursday by Lord Carloway, the Lord Justice General, said the court “has had some difficulty in understanding the exact nature of the challenge”.
READ MORE: Lockerbie bomber appeal - Megrahi lawyer says identification was “highly prejudicial”
It said: “Although the case is clearly one of public importance, the proposed grounds of appeal do not raise points of law of general public importance.
“The principles of law which the court applied were all well known, settled and largely uncontroversial in the appeal.
“For these reasons, the court refuses permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.”
Pan Am flight 103 was travelling from London to New York (John Giles/PA)
Megrahi was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds while terminally ill with cancer, and died in Libya in 2012.
The third appeal was lodged after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the case to the High Court in March 2020, ruling a possible miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
Judges then granted his son, Ali al-Megrahi, permission to proceed with the appeal in relation to the argument “no reasonable jury” could have returned the verdict the court did, and on the grounds of non-disclosure of documents by the Crown.
Appeal court judges in January rejected both grounds of appeal, meaning his conviction stands.
READ MORE: Scottish judges uphold conviction of Lockerbie bomber after third appeal
Ali Al-Megrahi said: “I have now instructed our legal team to seek leave to appeal directly to the UK Supreme Court which is the final court of appeal for my father’s case.
“It is time for a new Libya, but that will never happen until there is justice for those who died in Lockerbie. I regard my father Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi as the 271st victim of Lockerbie.
“We now have a new democratic Government and we look to them to support our legal team in their pursuit of justice.”
Mr Anwar said: “I have no doubt that the new democratic Libyan Government headed by Abdul Hamid Aldabaibai will support this final appeal for justice on behalf of the Al-Megrahi family and help in our efforts to prove the innocence of Libya and its people.”
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