Undisclosed papers ‘would have destroyed case against Megrahi’
Documents relating to a key w i t n e s s i n t h e L o c k e r b i e b ombing conviction would have "destroyed" the case if they had been disclosed, an appeal court has heard.
T h e b o m b i n g o f P a n A m flight 103, travelling from London to New York on December 21, 1988, killed 270 people in Britain's largest terrorist atrocity.
Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-megrahi, who was found guilty in 2001 of mass murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years, was the only person convicted of the attack.
He died in his home country in 2012 having been released on compassionate grounds.
A third app eal against his c o nv i c t i o n b e g a n o n Tu e s - day at the High Court in Edinburgh, sitting as the Court of Appeal.
A p p e a l j u d g e s h ave b e e n told shopkeep er Tony Gau -
ci identified the late Megrahi as resembling the man who bought clothing in his shop - later found in a suitcase containing the bomb.
I t w a s h e a r d d o c u m e n t s in p ossession of the Crown r e v e a l e d t h e w i t n e s s h a d e x p r e s s e d f r u s t r a t i o n h e would not b e comp ensated for his part in the case.
Gordon Jackson, QC, of the Megrahi family's legal team, argued if the defence team at the time had known about this they would have found other documents that show Mr Gauci expressed an "interest in receiving money".
The court was told two other factors - that Mr Gauci was informed Megrahi was in an i d e n t i f i c a t i o n p a r a d e a n d inconsistencies in evidence - would have led to the Libyan's acquittal.
I t wa s h e a r d t h e l aw y e r s w o u l d h a v e b e e n a b l e t o c h a n g e t h e i r "s o f t l y, s o f t l y "approach to questioning the witness and challenged his credibility.
Mr Jackson said if this different approach had been used, then "it is fairly obvious, in my s u b mis s i o n , t h a t we woul d n o t t h e n h ave t h e p o s i t i o n that we're in of him being convicted".
"We h ave n o w r e a c h e d a situation where there i s n o prop er basis for having any c r e d e n c e o r a c c e p t a n c e o r reliabilit y in that identification at all - that has a knock-on effect and destroys the whole c a s e ," M r J a c k s o n a d d e d . The appeal against the conviction resumes today.