Legislation
that permits the retrial of suspects comes into force today and could
trigger fresh developments in the Lockerbie case.
Under
the reform the principle of double jeopardy, which prevents a person
being tried twice for the same crime, will be enshrined in law but
will permit exemptions.
Crown
Office sources have confirmed that they are ready to examine the case
of Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who in 2001 was found not guilty of
blowing up Pan Am flight 103.
Mr
Fhimah's defence argued successfully that the case against him
amounted to "inference upon inference".
Over
the summer Scottish prosecutors interviewed the Libyan defector
Moussa Koussa, Colonel Gaddafi's former foreign minister. It is
understood that he was asked a series of questions about Mr Fhimah.
The
key changes in the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act were backed
unanimously by MSPs in March.
A
second trial will be permitted in very serious cases where, after an
acquittal, "compelling new evidence" emerges to
"substantially strengthen" the case against the suspect.
The measures will also allow a suspect to face retrial on a more
serious charge if the victim has died since the original trial.
The
principle of double jeopardy dates back more than 800 years. "the
law needed to be modernised to ensure that it is fit for the 21st
century and I am delighted this day has come," said Kenny
MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary.
Robert
Black, a professor of Scottish law at Edinburgh University said that
he would be "astounded" if prosecutors sought to re-indict
Mr Fhimah.
"The
Crown Office is just as aware as the rest of us are that the
astonishing thing about the Zeist trial was not the acquittal of
Fhimah but the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi," he wrote in his blog.
"Any
new evidence that has emerged since 2001 points clearly towards the
innocence of the accused Libyans rather than their guilt, as the
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission amongst others has pointed
out."
[This story now features in a news item in the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm headlined Professor challenges Crown Office spin over Pan Am 103 double jeopardy retrial.]
[This story now features in a news item in the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm headlined Professor challenges Crown Office spin over Pan Am 103 double jeopardy retrial.]
Well done, Professor Black.
ReplyDeleteYou know as well as I do that Mr Fhimah had nothing to do with Lockerbie.
No plausible connection can be made with him and the crime. He was not at Luqa Airport on 12 December 1988.
If he was not there, how did he breach security?
I am baffled as to what the "compelling new evidence" could be.
ReplyDelete