Time to find out the truth

I’VE never believed the Lockerbie verdict that Abdelbaset al-megrahi was guilty of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.

Now the long hushed-up, 800-page report on the case by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has concluded that a miscarriage of justice almost certainly occurred.

The contents of the report had been known to those in the know – the Scottish government, senior lawyers, the dogs in the street even – for more than five years.

It hasn’t been published on the spurious grounds that there were data protection issues involved.

I ask, in passing, has anyone ever been convicted under the Data Protection Act?

The report details six different grounds on which Megrahi could have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. I prefer the words fitted-up.

The whole report is now available on various websites, but basically the conclusion is that crucial evidence was not disclosed to the defence.

Thithis includes a cover-up of secresecret intelligence documents and uuncertainty over the date on which Megrahi was suppsupposed to have bought clothclothes in Malta. Aand the fact that the key wiwitnesses against him had bbeen paid £1.9million to testify, and one of the two Maltese brothers hhad a seen picture of Mmegrahi stating he was the bomber before he picked him out at an identification idi parade.

It’s right that the report shoshould be belatedly publpublished, the follow-up shoushould be an investigation of those who conspired to have Megrmegrahi scapegoated.