Lockerbie Bomber’s Conviction Can Be Appealed Again, Panel Finds

(Bloomberg) -- The only person found guilty for the bombing of an American airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 can have his conviction appealed posthumously, according to a decision by a legal review panel.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, or SCCRC, decided in May 2018 to review the case because it said Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal because he believed it would secure his release from prison and help him return to Libya.

“Mr. Megrahi’s family is now entitled to instruct an appeal against his conviction,” the commission said in a statement on Wednesday. It has referred the case to the High Court and it’s now a matter for the prosecution and defense to decide how to proceed, it said.

Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 for the killing of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. The Scottish government allowed him to leave jail in 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was suffering from terminal cancer and had just months to live. The Libyan died in his homeland three years later.

His release caused a political storm, with the Scottish government attacked by the U.S., the families of some victims and U.K. political parties. He was given a hero’s welcome on his return to Tripoli from Glasgow.

Al-Megrahi always maintained his innocence and dropped a second appeal against conviction days before he left prison. The SCCRC, which examines alleged miscarriages of justice in Scotland, rejected an application on behalf of Al-Megrahi in 2015 before his family tried again to have the case reopened a year later. The commission then agreed to look into it.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rodney Jefferson in Edinburgh at r.jefferson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alastair Reed at areed12@bloomberg.net

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