Lockerbie prosecutors offer part-disclosure of secret file
LONDON (AFP) — Prosecutors would accept the partial disclosure of a potentially crucial top secret document to help the Lockerbie bomber in his appeal, provided national security is not put at risk, they said Wednesday.
The document, from an unnamed foreign power, is seen by Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al-Megrahi's legal team as central to his case and could help clear his name in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am jet over Scotland.
But prosecutors want the document, which relates to the supply of timers which allegedly detonated the bomb, kept from the public and legal discussions about it held behind closed doors with specially-vetted lawyers.
Prosecutor Ronnie Clancy told the appeal court in Edinburgh that limited disclosure by means of a summary or redacted version could be an option if judges decide against revealing the entire document on national security grounds.
"I don't understand the advocate general (Britain's top legal officer in Scotland) to have ruled out limited disclosure at this stage," the lawyer said at an administrative hearing.
Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, is seeking to overturn his conviction and 27-year jail sentence for bombing Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on December 19, 1988.
A total of 270 people died -- 259 on board the plane and 11 people on the ground -- in what remains Britain's worst terrorist attack.
His lawyers want the secret document, which was kept from his defence team at trial in 2001, made public, maintaining there could be a miscarriage of justice if it is withheld.
They have previously accused the British government of interfering in the separate Scottish legal system by seeking a ban on it being made public.
