Nelson Mandela and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi

In January last year, the High Court of Justiciary rejected an appeal against conviction brought by the family of the late Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

Their solicitor, Aamer Anwar, said in a statement that “this is not the end of the matter”.

Mr Megrahi was originally convicted of the murder of 270 people when Pan Am flight 103, which was flying from Frankfurt to Detroit via London, was destroyed by a bomb over the town of Lockerbie. 

He was convicted by a bench of three judges at a trial without a jury conducted at a sitting of the High Court of Justiciary in the Netherlands in 2001. The case was referred to the High Court by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) for a second time in 2020 following earlier unsuccessful or abandoned appeal proceedings.

Mr Anwar said: “Overturning of the verdict for the Megrahi family and many of the families of British victims who also supported the appeal would have vindicated their belief that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom had lived a monumental lie for 33 years, imprisoning a man they knew to be innocent and punishing the Libyan people for a crime which they did not commit.”

Mr Anwar has been instructed to take the case back to the SCCRC and to continue to pursue an appeal.

He added: “The Megrahis regard their father as the 271st victim of Lockerbie. Ali said as a son he will not give up on his father’s dying wish to clear his name and that of Libya and has instructed myself as his family’s lawyer to continue with a further application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.”