Megrahi case report turns up heat on Crown Office

ALEX Salmond has welcomed the publication of the full report of the legal grounds for Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s second appeal as he said the document provides “valuable information” about the case.

The 800-page report from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, was published after being kept secret for five years.

Megrahi dropped his second appeal against his conviction for the bombing that killed 270 people shortly before he was controversially released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009 by SNP Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

The document, setting out the full details of the grounds for referral back to the appeal court in 2007, was published following assurances by the Lord Advocate that SCCRC members would not be prosecuted for revealing details of the report.

• Read the full SCCRC report into Megrahi’s conviction

The First Minister, who had called for the grounds for appeal to be published, yesterday said that the Scottish Government had “been doing everything in our powers to facilitate” the release of the information that could have cleared Megrahi over his involvement in the 1988 bombing.

SNP MSP Christine Grahame, convenor of Holyrood’s justice committee, seized on the online publication of the report to demand an inquiry into the Crown Office’s handling of Megrahi’s last appeal case be called.

She said that the report was “highly significant” after the document contained allegations that the Crown Office had withheld crucial evidence about the case.

Grounds for appeal in the 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 to the bomb and 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.

Ms Grahame said: “The question now is where to go from here, and I would suggest there are routes to take,” she said.

“There are allegations in the report that the Crown Office withheld crucial evidence that might have been substantive evidence to assist the defence, and I think there is a question about how the Crown Office acted.”

The MSP claimed that it would be “quite possible” for his family, after Megrahi’s death, to “step into the dead man’s shoes and resuscitate the appeal with the leave of the court”.

Meanwhile, Mr Salmond said that the publication of the report was “far more comprehensive” than any inquiry into the case would be.

He said: “I welcome the publication in full of this report, which is something that the Scottish Government has been doing everything in our powers to facilitate.I especially welcome the fact that it offers a full account of the SCCRC’s deliberations rather than partial accounts which have appeared in the media.”

The Crown Office said that it noted the publication of the SCCRC report, but claimed that it “does not deal with any of these issues which rightly constrain all public authorities by law.” The statement said: “The commission was working to facilitate the publication with appropriate protection for all of the persons named in it taking account of their human rights (articles 2 and 8) and issues of confidentiality.”