Abdelbaset al-Megrahi

[1] On 31 January 2001, Megrahi was convicted, by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, of 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

[citation needed] Protracted negotiations with the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and the imposition of UN economic sanctions against Libya brought the two accused to trial in a neutral country.

[22] On 24 November 2003, Megrahi appeared at the High Court in Glasgow, in front of the three judges who originally sentenced him at Camp Zeist, to learn that he would have to serve at least 27 years in jail – back-dated to April 1999 when he was extradited from Libya – before he could be considered for parole.

This court hearing was the result of the incorporation into Scots law of the European Convention on Human Rights in 2001, nine months after Megrahi's sentence was imposed, which required him to be told the extent of the "punishment part" of his life term.

[24] In an interview with The Scotsman newspaper of 31 January 2006, retired Scottish Judge Lord MacLean – one of the three who convicted Megrahi in 2001 – said he believed the SCCRC would return the case for a further appeal against conviction: They can't be working for two years without producing something with which to go to the court.MacLean added that any new appeal would indicate the flexibility of Scots law, rather than a weakness: It might even be the strength of the system – it is capable of looking at itself subsequently and determining a ground for appeal.In January 2007, the SCCRC announced that it would issue its decision on Megrahi's case by the end of June 2007.

[26] Later in June, The Observer confirmed the imminence of the SCCRC ruling and reported: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi never wavered in his denial of causing the Lockerbie disaster: now some Scottish legal experts say they believe him.

[27]On 28 June 2007, the SCCRC concluded its four-year review and, having uncovered evidence that a miscarriage of justice could have occurred, the commission granted Megrahi leave to appeal against his Lockerbie bombing conviction for a second time.

[35][36] In the June 2008 edition of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm, the UN Observer at the Lockerbie trial, Professor Hans Köchler, referred to the 'totalitarian' nature of Megrahi's second appeal process saying it "bears the hallmarks of an 'intelligence operation'".

[37] Pointing out an error on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's website (FCO) and accusing the British government of "delaying tactics" in relation to Megrahi's second Lockerbie appeal, UN Observer at the Lockerbie trial Dr Hans Köchler wrote to Foreign Secretary David Miliband on 21 July 2008 saying:[citation needed] As international observer, appointed by the UN, at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands I am also concerned about the Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate which has been issued by you in connection with the new Appeal of the convicted Libyan national.

[citation needed] At a preliminary High Court hearing in Edinburgh on 20 February 2009, Megrahi's Counsel, Maggie Scott QC, was informed that a delegation from the Crown Office was due to travel to Malta to "actively seek the consent for disclosure" of sensitive documents that could determine the outcome of the second appeal.

[41] Kenny MacAskill announced in May 2011 that the re-elected SNP Government would seek to change Scots law to allow publication of the SCCRC report, which can presently be blocked by any party that provided evidence to the review.

This led to the production of a highly critical report of the scientific and forensic evidence presented at the original trial by the Church of Scotland's leading scientist Dr John Urquhart Cameron.

[44] As a result, in July 2003, Torrance petitioned the then prime minister Tony Blair to consider his release in view of the widespread unease in Scotland concerning the safety of the verdict.

It stated that he was terminally ill and would benefit physically and psychologically from compassionate release to his temporary home in Glasgow while he awaited the outcome of the appeal granted to him by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in June 2007.

[66] Immediately following the announcement, Megrahi, who had served just over 8+1⁄2 years of his life sentence,[66] was escorted by Strathclyde Police to Glasgow Airport where he boarded a specially chartered aircraft to Tripoli operated by the Libyan state-owned Afriqiyah Airways.

[69] After he left the aircraft, Megrahi was driven away in convoy for a long-awaited meeting with his 86-year-old mother, Hajja Fatma Ali al-Arabi, who a few days earlier had pleaded emotionally with Scottish Ministers to release her son.

Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Seyala claimed that Megrahi had been moved to a special VIP wing of the hospital, was receiving full treatment from a team of doctors, and that his condition was not dangerous.

The guidance on compassionate release of a terminally ill prisoner under Scottish law specifies that death must be likely to occur "soon"; there is no fixed time limit but a life expectancy of three months is suggested as "appropriate".

"[85] In response to an attempt to have his medical condition made public from Scottish Conservatives in July 2010, First Minister Alex Salmond compared him to one of Britain's most famous prisoners, Ronald Biggs,[86] who was outliving al-Megrahi while on compassionate release.

"[99] Professor Robert Black, an expert in Scots law who devised the non-jury trial that saw the Lockerbie case heard in 2000, has called Megrahi's murder conviction "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years".

Professor Black said he felt "a measure of personal responsibility" for persuading Libya to allow Megrahi and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima, who was acquitted, to stand trial under Scots law.

In the latest revelation, a prosecution expert misled judges about key evidence, according to a classified police memo published by the Sunday Herald on 17 July [2011]", cautioning that Dr Swire, other UK relatives of the victims, and a range of legal campaigners, including Professor Black, say that the May 2000 trial of two Libyan suspects, the other of whom was not convicted, amounts to a cover up and a serious miscarriage of justice.

"[101] On 30 August, an article published in the Sunday Times claimed ministers at Westminster had agreed not to specifically exclude al-Megrahi from an agreement concerning prisoner transfers in 2007 because of "overwhelming national interests".

[102][103] In a letter dated 19 December 2007, Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw wrote to his Scottish counterpart, "I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement.

The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the UK, I have agreed that in this instance the [PTA] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.

Further hearings examining Megrahi's release, due to be held at Capitol Hill on 29 July, were postponed when the US Dept of Justice and British witnesses – and in particular from the Scottish Government – refused to attend, and were rescheduled for September the same year, before the then forthcoming senatorial elections.

"[107][108] This same letter stressed the importance to the United States of America of a 3-months prognosis, despite it not being a legal requirement in Scotland: "any such release should only come after the results of independent and comprehensive medical exams clearly establishing that Megrahi's life expectancy is less than three months".

[111] Cable 08LONDON2673 (dated 2008-10-24) from US Embassy London reports:[112] MEGRAHI was first diagnosed on 23 September at Inverclyde Royal Hospital, both the FCO and the Scottish Crown office have told us; the second diagnosis was on 10 October.

MEGRAHI could have as long as five years to live, but the average life expectancy of someone of his age with his condition is eighteen months to two yearsCable 09TRIPOLI65 (dated 2009-01-28) from US Embassy Tripoli reports:[113] the case of convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi is arguably the regime's most sensitive political subject, in part because it involves a firm timeline in the form of the ailing el-Megrahi's approaching death.

[118][120][121] On 30 August 2011, the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said, "The latest pictures broadcast of Mr al-Megrahi clearly demonstrate that he is an extremely sick man, dying of terminal prostate cancer.

Barlinnie Prison , where Megrahi was incarcerated from 2001 to 2005