Legal row breaks out over Lockerbie trial document

DAVID Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, believes releasing a secret document to the Lockerbie bomber would cause "real harm" to the national interest, appeal court judges were told yesterday.

Mr Miliband has issued a "public interest immunity certificate" against revealing the paper from an unidentified foreign power, which has insisted it should remain confidential and be kept from lawyers for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

However, Elish Angiolini, QC, Scotland's senior prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, is happy for it to be seen by Megrahi's lawyers. It relates to the timer alleged to have been fitted in the bomb.

Margaret Scott, QC, for Megrahi, accused the UK government of interfering in his appeal. But Lord Davidson, QC, the Advocate-General for Scotland, said: "To blithely hand the document out, as (Megrahi] considers possible, would be to act contrary to the interests of the UK government."

The judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh reserved their decision on whether a public interest immunity plea by the Advocate-General is competent when the Lord Advocate, as the independent head of the prosecution service in Scotland, has not stated such a plea.

Megrahi has been granted a second appeal against his conviction for the 1988 bombing, which killed 270 people.