Lockerbie — appeal decision delayed until 2020

[This is the headline over an article published today on Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer's Intel Today website. It reads in part:]

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is reviewing the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Previously, it had been indicated that the SCCRC’s decision would be handed down by the end of summer 2019. But the SCCRC just announced that a decision is not expected before 2020. (...)

On May 3 2018, The  Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced it would examine the case to decide whether it would be appropriate to refer the matter for a fresh appeal.

Christine Grahame — a Member of the Scottish Parliament since its inception in 1999 — has been outspoken in her view that the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the 1988 Lockerbie tragedy is unsafe and represents a miscarriage of justice.

According to Grahame, the commission was expected to report by summer 2019.

RELATED POST: Lockerbie — Christine Grahame MSP: “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied”

However, the SCCRC has just announced that a decision is not expected before 2020.

Obviously, this new delay will cause frustration in some circles.

In an email to Intel Today, a long-time reseacher of the Lockerbie case wrote:

“It should come as no surprise that the SCCRC report is to be delayed: just about every other action by the Scottish, UK and US authorities has been delayed, sometimes by years.

It is a tactic to frustrate hope and retain control of events in the hands of those people who fabricated the Lockerbie false narrative.”

But some people remain optimistic. Megrahi family’s Scottish lawyer Aamer Anwar said:

“We presented significant material which requires robust investigation and a number of inquiries have unfolded after issues we raised.

The family want to insure every avenue is looked at and that no short cuts are taken. We have one chance and we expect this to go back to the appeal court.”

In an email to Intel Today, Robert Black QC FRSE – Professor Emeritus of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and best known as the “Architect of the Lockerbie Trial” wrote:

“While it is disappointing that the SCCRC will not be reporting by the end of the summer, the fact that their investigations are taking longer than anticipated is, in some ways, a hopeful sign.

My worry always has been that the Commission might find that, although there might have been a miscarriage of justice, it was not in the interests of justice that there be a third appeal (Megrahi having lost the first one and abandoned the second one in order to return home to die).

If this was going to be the ultimate decision of the Commission, I do not believe that they would be conducting such rigorous and lengthy investigations.

I’m reasonably confident therefore that the SCCRC will find that there may have been a miscarriage of justice, for the six reasons specified by their predecessors in 2007 and also on at least some of the further additional grounds advanced since then.

And, as I say, I think it unlikely that, having so concluded they would then say that it was not in the interests of justice for there to be a further appeal.”

Most Intel Today readers (90%) believe that the Lockerbie verdict is a spectacular miscarriage of justice.

I understand that a similar poll among Scotland lawyers would be even more devastating.

Truth never dies.