Inquiry call after report on Lockerbie appeal published

The 800-page Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) document was published by The Sunday Herald on its website yesterday, the first time the report has been in the public domain.

Known as a statement of reasons, it sets out the full details of the grounds for referral back to the appeal court in 2007 in the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and four refer to undisclosed evidence from the Crown to Megrahi’s defence team.

The six grounds for referral were previously published by the SCCRC – the body which investigates potential miscarriages of justice – only in summary.

Megrahi dropped his second appeal shortly before he was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009 by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

The Scottish Government had brought forward legislation to bring about the publication of the full report but data protection rules, reserved to Westminster, barred its formal publication.

The Herald, which has earlier published extracts, said it had made the entire report available because it was in the public interest, adding that Megrahi himself had sent a copy to Mr MacAskill.

The Crown Office released a statement that stressed while it was the SCCRC’s role to determine whether a miscarriage of justice may have taken place, “it does not follow that there was a miscarriage of justice, only the Appeal Court can decide that”.

Megrahi was the only person convicted of the atrocity which killed 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie in 1988.

He was convicted by Scottish judges in 2001, unsuccessfully appealing against the verdict the same year, and subsequently launched a second, which was referred back to the courts in 2007.

The four grounds for referral outlined in the SCCRC report cover evidence about a positive identification of Megrahi by Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who said he sold clothes to a Libyan man.

The clothes were linked to a suitcase loaded on to the plane, which was then linked eventually to Megrahi.

The SCCRC raised concerns that evidence suggesting Mr Gauci had seen a magazine article linking Megrahi to the bomb was not passed to the defence. Contradictions about the day Megrahi was said to have bought the clothes were also highlighted, as was undisclosed evidence about Mr Gauci’s interest in rewards.

A fifth reason covered “secret” intelligence documents not seen by Megrahi’s legal team while the sixth referred to new evidence on the date of clothes purchased in Malta.

Christine Grahame, convenor of Holyrood’s Justice Committee, called for an inquiry into the Crown Office. “There are allegations in the report that the Crown Office withheld crucial evidence that might have been substantive evidence to assist the defence.”