The appeal: day one

The first session of Abdelbaset Megrahi's appeal started today in the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh before the Lord Justice General (Lord Hamilton), Lords Wheatley, Eassie and Kingarth and Lady Paton. A member of the public who attended the first part of today's proceedings -- not a lawyer -- was far from impressed with the process or with the level of interest generated. As someone remarked of proceedings at the first appeal in 2002: "It was as exciting as watching paint dry."

Numerous accounts of the day's proceedings have appeared (almost all of them based on the same news agency reports). The report on the BBC News website can be read here; that on The Guardian website here; that on the CNN website here; that on The New York Times website here; and the Reuters news agency report here.

The report on The Herald's website contains the following account of the opening submissions by Maggie Scott QC for Megrahi:

'Beginning legal submissions on Al Megrahi's behalf, Margaret Scott QC told the court: "The appellant's position is that there has been a miscarriage of justice in this case."

'She said the trial court, on the basis of "wholly circumstantial evidence", concluded it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that Al Megrahi was involved in the crime.

'"In our submission, it was wrong to do so," she said.

'She told the panel of five judges - led by Scotland's top judge, the Lord Justice General Lord Hamilton - that Al Megrahi's condition has "deteriorated".

'As a consequence, Al Megrahi, who is able to listen to proceedings via a live link-up, would be unable to sit through a full day of proceedings and would need to take breaks, she said.

'Ms Scott told the judges the trial court's conclusion centred on four "critical inferences".

'These were that Al Megrahi bought the clothing which was in the suitcase containing the bomb, that the purchase happened on December 7 1988, that the buyer knew the purpose for which the clothing was bought, and that the suitcase containing the bomb entered the system at Luqa airport in Malta.

'But Ms Scott told the court these were all areas of dispute.

'"The appellant challenges the drawing of each of these critical inferences and consequently the conclusion that he was involved in the crime," she said.

'She argued the inferences were not "sufficiently supported" by the accepted evidence and that the inferences relied on "defective reasoning".

'Ms Scott went on: "No reasonable jury, properly directed, could have drawn the critical inferences which were necessary to return that verdict of guilty."

'She also suggested other conclusions could have been drawn from the accepted evidence.'