Lockerbie Bomber Loses Appeal

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi today lost an appeal against his conviction for the murder of 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the skies over Lockerbie in December 1988.

Lord Justice General Lord Cullen, the Lord President of the court of session and the head of a panel of five Scottish judges, said the panel had unanimously rejected all of the appeal grounds.

"For the reasons given in the opinion, in which we all concur, we have concluded that none of the grounds of appeal is well founded. The appeal will accordingly be refused," he said.

Megrahi will now be transferred to Scotland within 24 hours to serve the rest of his sentence, which carries a minimum 20-year term. It is understood he will be housed in Scotland's largest prison, Barlinnie jail, in Glasgow.

However, the 49-year-old Libyan's lawyers said there were two avenues of appeal still open, the House of Lords, and the European court of human rights.

They branded the ruling "political" and "illegal", insisting there was no proof to link him to the bomb which met any "international legal standards".

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said of today's ruling: "I hope it does give them [the families of victims] some solace and comfort." He will make a full statement in the Commons later today.

Mr Straw also urged the Libyan government to now "fully comply with the terms of the UN security council".

These comprise essentially two requirements: that Libya accepts broad responsibility for the bombing; and pays compensation to the families of the victims, which could run to hundreds of millions of pounds.

Libyan and British officials reportedly met in January to discuss a deal which would see Libya fulfil the UN's requirements in return for the way being opened for the north African country to resume oil deals worth billions of pounds.

Megrahi was found guilty last January of the biggest single act of mass murder in modern British history, at a special Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in Holland.

He launched an appeal earlier this year, with his defence lawyer, William Taylor QC, arguing that the guilty verdict had been a miscarriage of justice.

Megrahi's challenge was based partly on fresh evidence from a retired Heathrow airport security guard, Ray Manly, who said he had witnessed evidence of a break-in at the baggage handling area the night before Pan Am 103 took off.

Mr Manly said a door leading from the check-in area had been forced open, which could have allowed someone to plant a bag with a Pan Am luggage label in the area where bags were loaded on to planes.

However, the prosecution argued that the new evidence was "hypothetical" and that the door could have been forced by airport staff seeking a short-cut to the baggage area.

Megrahi's unique trial last year was held before three judges without a jury.

He and the co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah, were handed over for trial in a neutral country by the Libyan dictator, Colonel Muammar Gadafy.

The trial resulted in Mr Fhimah being cleared of involvement in the bombing.

The trial judges produced an 82-page judgment in which they detailed how the bomb was loaded on to a plane on the Mediterranean island of Malta before being transferred to Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York on December 21 1988.

The bomb detonated as the plane passed over the Dumfries and Galloway town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board and 11 others on the ground.

Relatives of those who died at Lockerbie, many of whom were in court today, were generally unconvinced by the appeal.

Kathleen Flynn, from Montville, New Jersey, whose 21-year-old son, JP, died in the 1988 atrocity, said: "I can't see anything that was put forward in the appeal that would make a lick of difference to the conviction."