Monday 21 November 2016

Closing of prosecution case

[What follows is excerpted from a report that appeared on the BBC News website on this date in 2000:]

The Lockerbie trial has been adjourned for a week to allow the defence teams to prepare their cases.

On Monday the prosecution case ended after more than six months of evidence.

When the trial resumes, one of the two accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, is expected to ask the judges to throw out the case against him.

It is expected that the legal argument concerning that matter could take up to three days.

The lawyer for Mr Fhimah will argue at the Scottish court in the Netherlands that insufficient evidence has been presented against his client.

The hearing, which was opened 71 days ago by Scotland's most senior law officer, Lord Advocate Colin Boyd, has featured 250 witnesses and several lengthy adjournments.

The Crown is seeking to show that a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, when taken together, proves Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah carried out the bombing, in which 270 people died.

Next week the court will hear a motion that there is no case to answer against Mr Fhimah.

The judges will be asked to decide on the weight of evidence against him, rather than the quality of the Crown case. [RB: This is inaccurate:  a “no case to answer” submission is not about the weight of the evidence led by the prosecution. It is simply about whether corroborated evidence has been led of the essential facts (that the crime charged was committed and that the accused committed it).  The credibility and reliability of that evidence are not considered at this stage.]

There has been no similar move from Megrahi, and there is now speculation he will be the first witness when the defence case begins next week. [RB: Fhimah’s no case to answer submission was rejected by the court. Neither Megrahi nor Fhimah gave evidence.]

1 comment:

  1. DOSSIER LOCKERBIE, 2016 - google translation German/ English >>

    You can watch now on facebook, a statement additional to Al Jazeera report, from Eng. Ulrich Lumpert, new facts, translated into English language.

    Which officials, from Switzerland and Scotland - in the autumn before Christmas 1989, had brought the MST-13 Timerfragment (PT-35) to Eng. Ulrich Lumpert, in the MEBO laboratory - and how could this happen, because the MST-13 Timerfragment was first found in January 1990 (not on 12 May 1989, writing on RARDE report 181, on page nr. 51) in a slalom shirt from expert Allen Feraday at RARDE ?? !!!

    by Edwin & Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO LTD, Telecommunication Switzerland. Webpage www.lockerbie.ch

    ReplyDelete