31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002
Issue No.571
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002 Issue No.571 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Lockerbie file reopened
Things seem to be looking up for Abdel-Basset Ali Mohamed Al-Megrahi, a Libyan national who is serving a life sentence for the bombing of a Pan-Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 in which 270 people were killed.
Last Wednesday, Al-Megrahi's lawyers began an appeal which challenged the verdict of the original trial of the Lockerbie affair which ended on 31 January 2001.
British Lord Cullen, the lord justice general, presides over a panel of five judges hearing the appeal. The hearing could last for several weeks.
Libyan hopes are pinned on Al-Megrahi's acquittal to absolve Libya of terrorism. If Al-Megrahi is acquitted, Libya will press for compensation for the international embargo imposed on it. Officially, only Al-Megrahi -- and neither Libya no its intelligence services -- is in the dock. Both the US and the UK, however, insist that Al-Megrahi acted as an agent of the Libyan regime and its intelligence services, and accordingly the Libyan government should be held responsible for terrorism and pay damages if Al-Megrahi is convicted. The British and Americans surmise that Al-Megrahi was a minor figure in a broader plot. Sanctions, Washington contends, will only be lifted when Libya accepts total responsibility for the Lockerbie disaster and pays $6 billion in compensation.
If Al-Megrahi's appeal comes to naught, as many of the relatives of the victims expect, then Al-Megrahi will be transferred from Camp Zeist to Barlinnie high security prison in Glasgow, Scotland, where he will serve a life sentence. It all apparently hinges on the timing of the hanging of Christmas decorations 14 years ago and the credibility of the Maltese shopkeeper, Toni Gauci, who identified Al-Megrahi as his client, asserting that the Libyan patronised his shop when seasonal decorations were being hung.
The prosecution's case was entirely dependent on the Maltese connection. That Gauci's testimony was taken as proof of the connection between Al-Megrahi and the brown Samsonite bag packed with explosives is, needless to say, startling. Apparently clothes in the explosives-packed Samsonite had Maltese labels and were purchased in Malta. Even more ambiguous is the revelation that the three judges in the original Lockerbie case ignored the inconsistencies in Gauci's statements and the fact that he gave three different versions of the timing of the hanging of the Christmas decorations, considered crucial in the case.
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