Press release regarding publication of appeal documents

Mr Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who has returned to his homeland, Libya, today commences the release of information which he hopes will establish his innocence. Through the website megrahimystory.net he will release details of Grounds of Appeal 1 and 2 of his challenge to the conviction for involvement in the Lockerbie bombing.

Grounds 1 and 2 dealt with the challenge to the conviction on the grounds of legal sufficiency and reasonableness.

The detailed written submissions lodged by Mr Megrahi’s defence team insupport of the grounds, also published today, break down the various steps in the reasoning of the Trial Court it said led to the conclusion that it was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of Mr Megrahi.

In publishing this material Mr Megrahi made the following statement:

“I have returned to Tripoli with my unjust conviction still in place. As a resultof the abandonment of my appeal I have been deprived of the opportunity to clear my name through the formal appeal process. I have vowed to continue my attempts to clear my name. I will do everything in my power to persuade the public, and in particular the Scottish public, of my innocence.

Through my website I have published the material which featured in the first full hearing of my appeal namely the challenges under Grounds of Appeal 1 and 2 to the legal sufficiency and reasonableness of the Court’s findings. I hope that this can assist in the understanding of my case, especially for those who have been most profoundly affected by it. As can be seen from the documents released today some of the challenges mounted before the Court are supported by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Argument was heard upon these challenges but unfortunately the Court was not, by the time of my abandonment, in a position to provide its opinion. Thus, there is no Court judgement or adjudication upon these challenges”.

Mr Megrahi hopes to continue to publish details of his appeal challenge in the course of the forthcoming weeks.

[The above is the text of a press release issued at noon today by Abdelbaset Megrahi's Scottish solicitor, Tony Kelly. The Scotsman's report on the matter can be read here and The Times's here. The Times of Malta website contains a report focussing on what the documents have to say about the identification evidence of Tony Gauci and the evidence relating to ingestion of the bomb at Malta's Luqa Airport.

The Lord Advocate has issued a press release commenting on this development it reads:

'The Lord Advocate, the Right Honourable Elish Angiolini QC, has criticised the publication of selected material relating to his appeal by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber.

'Mrs Angiolini said:

'“I deplore the efforts by Abdelbaset Megrahi to challenge his conviction through selective publication of his view of the evidence in the media after he has abandoned his second appeal against conviction.

'“The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously by three senior judges following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges, in an Appeal Court presided over by the Lord Justice General, Scotland’s most senior judge. Mr Megrahi remains convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in UK history .

'“The Crown has supported the conviction vigorously and stood ready, willing and able to do so throughout the appeal process which Mr Megrahi abandoned.

'“As he and his legal team have made clear, the decision to discontinue the appeal proceedings was taken voluntarily by Mr Megrahi himself. He did not require to abandon his appeal. Having done so, he now seeks to retry his case in the media and criticise the evidence against him. Mr Megrahi exercised his right of silence throughout the judicial proceedings.

'“The only evidence that the trial court ever heard from Mr Megrahi was in the television interview which he gave, after publication of the criminal charges in 1991, to the veteran journalist Pierre Salinger. In that interview, which was played to the trial court by the prosecution, Mr Salinger put to him the detailed allegations and his responses on many important matters were disproved and discredited in the trial.”'

This is a bit rich coming from the person whose office was responsible for the lion's share of the outrageous delay in getting Mr Megrahi's second appeal to the stage of argument. This had the consequence that, given his terminal illness, there was no chance of his surviving until its conclusion and also ultimately led to his regrettable, but entirely understandable, decision to abandon the appeal to maximise his chances of repatriation by keeping open the prisoner transfer option. At the end of the day the Cabinet Secretary for Justice chose another option -- compassionate release -- but Megrahi had no way of knowing that that was going to happen.

Here is what I wrote on this blog almost a year ago, on 26 October 2008:

"More than sixteen months have passed since then. More than thirteen months have passed since the first procedural hearing in the new appeal was held. More than ten months have passed since the appellant’s full written grounds of appeal were lodged with the court. Why has no date yet been fixed for the hearing of the appeal? Why does it now seem impossible that the appeal can be heard and a judgement delivered by the twentieth anniversary of the disaster on 21 December 2008?

"The answer is simple: because the Crown, in the person of the Lord Advocate, and the United Kingdom Government, in the person of the Advocate General for Scotland, have been resorting to every delaying tactic in the book (and where a particular obstructionist wheeze is not in the book, have been asking the court to rewrite the book to insert it). These tactics include, to name but a few, raising difficulties about allowing the appellant access to productions used at the original trial; seeking to overturn previous appeal court decisions on the scope of the appeal in SCCRC references; and claiming public interest immunity on “national security” grounds in respect of documents which have been in the hands of the Crown for more than twelve years and which have been seen by the SCCRC. The judges on a number of occasions have expressed disquiet at the Crown’s dilatoriness; but have so far done little, if anything, meaningful to curb it."]