[This is the headline over a report that appeared in the Daily Mail on this date in 2003. It reads as follows:]
The sentence handed down to the Lockerbie bomber last month is to be challenged on the grounds that it was unduly lenient, prosecutors said.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi was told by three Scottish judges he must spend at least 27 years in jail before he was considered for parole.
The hearing at the High Court in Glasgow took place to determine the "punishment part" of Megrahi's mandatory life sentence as required under European Human Rights legislation.
Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC, Scotland's senior legal figure, has lodged an appeal against that length of term.
American relatives, who said the sentence passed in November was too little for the crime, welcomed the move, while British reaction was critical.
Megrahi's legal team said they were concerned they had not been informed of the move by the Crown Office and said they were considering their own appeal against sentence.
The Libyan's solicitor Eddie MacKechnie said the length of the punishment was irrelevant because his actual term in jail may be longer.
"The period of 27 years is that which he has to serve before he is even considered for release and it does not follow that he will be released."
He added: "Mr Megrahi is currently considering an appeal himself on technical grounds, but it has not yet been decided whether to proceed."
He said it would not be appropriate to comment further without studying grounds on which the Lord Advocate's appeal had been lodged.
The former Libyan intelligence agent was convicted at a special trial in the Netherlands in 2001 of killing 270 people in the 1988 atrocity and is serving a life sentence at Barlinnie prison in Glasgow.
At the High Court in the city on November 24, Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean ruled he must spend at least 27 years in jail before a parole board could review whether he should be released. The sentence was backdated to April 1999 when he was extradited from Libya for the trial at Camp Zeist in Holland.
[RB: The Lord Advocate dropped this appeal on 21 August 2009, one day after Abdelbaset Megrahi was released from prison on compassionate grounds.]
The sentence handed down to the Lockerbie bomber last month is to be challenged on the grounds that it was unduly lenient, prosecutors said.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi was told by three Scottish judges he must spend at least 27 years in jail before he was considered for parole.
The hearing at the High Court in Glasgow took place to determine the "punishment part" of Megrahi's mandatory life sentence as required under European Human Rights legislation.
Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC, Scotland's senior legal figure, has lodged an appeal against that length of term.
American relatives, who said the sentence passed in November was too little for the crime, welcomed the move, while British reaction was critical.
Megrahi's legal team said they were concerned they had not been informed of the move by the Crown Office and said they were considering their own appeal against sentence.
The Libyan's solicitor Eddie MacKechnie said the length of the punishment was irrelevant because his actual term in jail may be longer.
"The period of 27 years is that which he has to serve before he is even considered for release and it does not follow that he will be released."
He added: "Mr Megrahi is currently considering an appeal himself on technical grounds, but it has not yet been decided whether to proceed."
He said it would not be appropriate to comment further without studying grounds on which the Lord Advocate's appeal had been lodged.
The former Libyan intelligence agent was convicted at a special trial in the Netherlands in 2001 of killing 270 people in the 1988 atrocity and is serving a life sentence at Barlinnie prison in Glasgow.
At the High Court in the city on November 24, Lords Sutherland, Coulsfield and MacLean ruled he must spend at least 27 years in jail before a parole board could review whether he should be released. The sentence was backdated to April 1999 when he was extradited from Libya for the trial at Camp Zeist in Holland.
[RB: The Lord Advocate dropped this appeal on 21 August 2009, one day after Abdelbaset Megrahi was released from prison on compassionate grounds.]
The Daily Mail? Must you? (Note that their explicit acknowledgment of the date the sentence commenced never stopped them declaring that Megrahi only served eight years before he was released in 2009.)
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