[Three years ago today, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Scotland called for an investigation into the withholding from the Lockerbie trial court by the Crown of information relevant to Abdelbaset Megrahi’s defence. An article in Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm reads in part:]
The Liberal Democrat leader at the Scottish Parliament, Willie Rennie, has today called for an investigation into claims crucial information was withheld from the criminal trial of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.
His statement came in response to remarks from UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Labour justice spokesman Lewis Macdonald and Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont who expressed negative views that Mr Megrahi had not yet deceased.
“However evil Megrahi is, however badly the SNP handled his release and however long he has survived, rather than obsessing about whether a dying man is dead yet we should be investigating whether crucial information was withheld from the trial,” Rennie said.
A petition is currently live before the Parliament’s petitions committee calling for an inquiry into the debacle. [RB: The petition remains live in the Scottish Parliament.]
Unfortunately Willie Rennie is an irrelevance looking for a higher media profile, as I think subsequent developments confirmed. Of course crucial information was withheld from the court, that's incontrovertible. I don't think Willie Rennie has the foggiest idea what it was though, or indeed could even give a coherent account of why Megrahi was convicted in the first place.
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