World

Lockerbie Defense Wraps Up Appeal

By Bootie Cosgrove-Mather

March 14, 2002 / 7:04 AM EST / CBS

A court considering the appeal of a Libyan convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 heard its final witnesses Thursday, including those who countered a defense theory that the bomb was put on the plane in London, not Malta.

Defense lawyer William Taylor argued that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted of murder in the case because vital evidence had been withheld during the original trial about a break-in at the baggage area at London's Heathrow Airport.

Taylor contends that the break-in shows the bomb could have been smuggled on board the New York-bound plane in London. Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, was sentenced a year ago to life in prison after the trial court found that he had put a bomb into the international baggage system as unaccompanied luggage in Malta. The bombing on Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people.

"It is reasonable to conclude that the verdict, reached in ignorance of this evidence, must be regarded as a miscarriage of justice," Taylor said in final comments on the appeal's 14th day at a special Scottish court in the Netherlands.

But prosecution witnesses testified that airport staff at Heathrow occasionally forced open a door to a baggage area to take a shortcut, undermining the defense theory that the bomb was planted by an intruder at Heathrow.

The five judges on the special Scottish court later retired to consider their decision.

On Wednesday, two Heathrow security guards testified that they found a broken padlock on a door to a restricted area where luggage was waiting to be loaded onto various Pan Am flights. Guard Raymond Manly and his supervisor, Philip Radley, testified that the break-in looked like a professional job and had reported it to the police.

Manly and Radley were never called to testify in the original trial.

Defense lawyers said they had no knowledge of this evidence until after the verdict was delivered last Jan. 31.

The break-in "occurred within 18 hours before the takeoff of Pan Am 103," Taylor said in his final submission. The testimony constituted "a strong circumstantial case for Heathrow," he said.

Because the evidence of the break-in was not used in the original trial, "the verdict of the court must be regarded as a miscarriage of justice," Taylor said.

Taylor said the U-shaped metal padlock was cut. He said there was no damage to the door and that it was barred by a 1-inch thick iron bar. This would have made it impossible to force the door by kicking it.

But some of the five witnesses called by the prosecution said the bar was installed after the Lockerbie crash because of problems with baggage handlers and guards forcing their way through the exit to take a short cut after their shift was over. They said it was not likely that there was a break-in.

"To the best of my recollection the bar was installed after that. But I might be mistaken," said another security guard, Keith Willis.

The prosection's case in the original trial rested on the testimony of a Maltese shopkeeper who said that al-Megrahi purchased clothing at his store that police identified as the items used to pad the bomb inside the suitcase.

The three judges who convicted Megrahi in January 2001 had accepted the suitcase bomb was loaded in Malta, from where it went via Frankfurt to Heathrow to be placed aboard Pan Am 103.

But they acknowledged in their verdict that there was no explanation of how the rigged suitcase had made it past tight security at Malta's Luqa airport onto an Air Malta flight.

"We are aware that in relation to certain aspects of the case there are a number of uncertainties and qualifications," the trial judges said in the original written verdict.