Tuesday 31 January 2012

Eleven years of injustice

It was eleven years ago today that the judges of the Scottish Court at Camp Zeist delivered their verdict of Guilty against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (and Not Guilty against Lamin Fhima) for the murder of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. The Opinion of the Court justifying the verdicts can be read here. In the version originally issued on 31 January 2001, in the very first sentence, their Lordships mis-stated the date of the disaster. This is indicative of the quality of the Opinion as a whole. [RB: This is a modified excerpt from the post that appeared on this blog on the tenth anniversary of the Zeist verdict.]

2 comments:

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  2. Given:

    a) the likely stresses from being accused of mass murder,

    b) the possibility that the "under house arrest" status of Mr Megrahi and Mr Fhimah was more than nominal,

    c) their detention at Zeist before and during the trial, and

    d) the reliance in the original indictments of 1991 on the evidence of a person thought by the judges to be a fabricator -

    if Mr Megrahi was wrongly convicted then we might put the years of injustice at 20.

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