A decision on whether to hold a new inquiry into the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was put off yesterday after campaigners sent a letter making “serious allegations” to the Scottish justice secretary, claiming the police investigation into the case had been mishandled.
The Justice for Megrahi group has given Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill 30 days to respond to their claims, after which they will make them public.
The development came as a Scottish parliamentary committee met yesterday to review a request by the group for a fresh inquiry into the bombing. A decision on that was put off to give Mr MacAskill time to respond.
The group, which includes a few relatives of the atrocity’s 270 victims, believes the only man convicted of the bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
In particular, the group believes that the theory established in the 2001 Camp Zeist trial in The Netherlands, which rests on the idea that the bomb left Malta and was then transferred onto Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt, is baseless.
The evidence given by Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci was pivotal. He identified Mr Megrahi as the person who had made a random purchase of clothes (whose fragments were found on the disaster site) from his shop in Sliema in December 1988, some days before the bombing.
However, Mr Gauci’s testimony was subsequently undermined by news that the CIA had compensated him for his evidence and the fact that he had been coached by investigators to pick out Mr Megrahi.
Moreover, over the years, lobbyists and investigators have uncovered a body of evidence which further undermines the theory presented at Camp Zeist.
Speaking to The Times shortly after the yesterday’s hearing, the group’s secretary, Robert Forrester, said the outcome was a victory for their cause because it meant the request for an appeal was still on, despite pressure from the Conservative and Labour parties, the Crown Office (Scotland’s prosecution office that presented the case against Mr Megrahi) and the police not to conduct such an inquiry.
A request for such a probe had already been turned down by the Scottish Government.
“It’s a victory because it gives us more time to put the Crown Office into a corner from where they would hopefully have to come clean,” Mr Forrester said.
The Times revealed last week that the Crown Office had asked the Maltese courts to gather fresh evidence connected to the disaster.
The hearings in Malta, along with recent trips to Libya by Scottish investigators, Mr Forrester argued, were simply a ruse on the part of the Crown Office to buy more time and try to shore up the gaps that have been exposed in its case over the years.
“This gives us more time to see how Mr MacAskill will handle our serious allegations and what comes out of the Crown Office’s recent investigations. It’s a long chess game but we have reason to be hopeful,” he said.
Mr Megrahi, who always protested his innocence, was returned to his home country on compassionate grounds in August 2009 after serving 10 years in a Scottish jail. He accepted the deal in return for relinquishing his right to an appeal.
He died in Tripoli in May.