Salmond casts doubt on Megrahi conviction for Lockerbie bombing
Alex Salmond has questioned the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber by suggesting he believes Abdelbaset al Megrahi may have been “wrongly convicted” of the atrocity.
The former SNP leader, who was First Minister when Megrahi was controversially freed from a Scottish jail, said the evidence used to convict him was “open to question”. Mr Salmond was speaking on his television programme “The Alex Salmond Show”, broadcast on Kremlin-backed RT.
Mrs almond said :“here is my view: Is it possible for some- one to be guilty, yet wrongly convicted? Yes it is... the forensic evidence compiled by the Scottish authorities and the FBI clearly identified Libyan involvement and Malta as the place where the bomb was planted. Mr Megrahi was a high ranking Libyan intelligence official on the scene at the time. This supports the charge that he, acting with others, was part of the Lockerbie conspiracy. However, his conviction was not just based on the strength of that evidence but on identification evidence which is to say the least open to question. Back in 2009 Kenny Macaskill was aware of this, as was I as Scotland’s First Minister.”
His claim was disputed by Richard Marquise, the FBI agent who headed the Lockerbie investigation.