Legal & political concern grows as Crown Office prepares to consider new Lockerbie report

[This is the heading over a press release issued today by Justice for Megrahi. It reads as follows:]

INTRODUCTION

As the 28th Anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing approaches on 21st December Justice for Megrahi, the single issue justice campaign group which believes that the 2001 conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was a miscarriage of justice, and which has petitioned the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into this conviction, has issued the following statement.

STATEMENT

‘Justice for Megrahi looks forward to the completion of the three year Operation Sandwood major police enquiry into our 9 criminal allegations against police, Crown Office officials and forensic scientists involved in the initial Lockerbie investigation and Camp Zeist trial, early in 2017.

Although the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission report in 2007 found that the Megrahi conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, this is the first major reinvestigation of all the facts since that conviction. We continue to have confidence in the Police Scotland investigation team to carry out a thorough and objective enquiry.

As we move towards 2017 however we have concerns in two areas.

Given the previous Lord Advocate’s public rejection of our allegations, before any enquiry had even taken place, we have written to the new Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC and asked him to ensure that Crown Office gives the Operation Sandwood report independent and objective consideration.

The previous support of the Justice Committee, in maintaining a watching brief over developments related to the ongoing police enquiry, has been of great value given that the Scottish Parliament has a constitutional duty to oversee the administration of justice in Scotland.  This political scrutiny is critical and we are concerned that the current committee might decide to end that oversight as soon as the police report is submitted to Crown Office. It is essential that our political representatives continue scrutiny until Crown Office has considered the Police report and has published its findings, in order to ensure that the Scottish public and the broader worldwide audience are fully aware of these findings.’