Appeal in Lockerbie bombing reaches Scotland’s highest court

Scotland’s highest court began hearing a posthumous appeal on Tuesday for a Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner that killed 270 people over the town of Lockerbie, the deadliest terrorist attack in Britain. The appeal, lodged by the family of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person found guilty in the midair blast, is the latest turn in a decades-long case that left many details unresolved. Al-Megrahi insisted on his innocence until his death in 2012. “We are in possession of much evidence that we have not revealed publicly,” said Aamer Anwar, a lawyer for al-Megrahi’s family, adding that in his dying breath al-Megrahi had wanted to clear his name. “The Megrahis regard their father as the 271st victim of Lockerbie.” A spokesman for Crown prosecutors declined to comment, citing the continuing appeal. The prosecutors have said that they would “rigorously defend” the conviction. The flight, Pan Am 103, had been traveling to New York from London on Dec. 21, 1988, when a bomb aboard detonated as it flew over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 259 passengers and crew members and 11 people on the ground. Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer who was working undercover at Libya’s state airline, was convicted of organizing the bombing in an unusual 2001 trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law and sentenced to life in prison, with a 27-year minimum term.<br/>