Last year, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) granted the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing a second appeal on the basis that his conviction may have been unsafe. Among the grounds justifying the decision, the committee stated that the Crown had not given the defense access to a secret document which may be vital to establish the innocence of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.The Westminster government, not the Lord Advocate, has imposed a Public Interest Immunity certificate in order to prevent the defense to see the very document which justifies the second appeal in the first place.
Very little is known about this document. We know that it was obtained from a foreign country, which is not the United States or one of its agencies. The document is rumored to obliterate the thesis of the bomb being activated by a MST-13 timer and the Thurman fragment. The government argues that the PII is needed, surprisingly not for National Security reasons, but to safeguard the good relation of the UK with the country that provided the document. Lastly, the document was passed to the UK in 1996. Yesterday, I was informed that the document was delivered on Sept. 13, 1996. The date leaves me with little doubt that the document is the testimony of Iranian defector Abolghasem Mesbahi who alleged that Tehran, not Tripoli, had ordered the bombing of Pan Am 103. Read full story
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