he lockerbie son of bomber is “deeply disappointed” that UK High Council judges have refused permission to appeal the case, a lawyer said.
lawyers because the family of the late Abdelbaset al-Megrahi — the only man convicted of the 1988 Pan-Am Flight 103 bombing — had tried to overturn a Supreme Court ruling.
Britain’s biggest terrorist atrocity killed a total of 270 people when the plane, traveling from London to New York, was shot down over Lockerbie in Scotland.
Former Libyan intelligence officer Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder in 2001 and given a minimum life sentence of 27 years.
The Megrahis consider their father to be Lockerbie’s 271st victim
In January last year, Megrahi’s son, Ali al-Megrahi, lost an appeal against his late father’s conviction.
The Supreme Court has ruled that permission to appeal against that decision must be denied because the “application does not raise a questionable point of law”.
Lawyer Aamer Anwar, who represents the Megrahi family, insisted this was not the end of the case, as he would return the case to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) and “continue to appeal”.
Mr Anwar said: “I spoke to Ali, the son of the late al-Megrahi, today and he said he was deeply disappointed in the decision of the British Supreme Court.
“Ali told me he was eight years old when his father went to the Netherlands to stand trial. When his father returned to Libya to die, Ali spent most of his time next to his father, saying he maintained his innocence until his last breath.
“The Megrahis consider their father to be Lockerbie’s 271st victim.”
Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds from prison in Scotland in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, and died in Libya in 2012.
The Libyan initially appealed his conviction in 2007, but this was dropped in 2009 before he was released out of sympathy.
Mr Anwar said: “Ali said as a son that he will not give up his father’s last wish to clear his name and that of Libya and has instructed myself as his family’s lawyer to proceed with further application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.”
In March 2020, the SCCRC referred Megrahi’s case to the High Court as a possible miscarriage of justice.
However, in what was the third appeal against Megrahi’s conviction in November 2020, at the High Court in Edinburgh, a panel of five judges rejected the claim.
Mr Anwar said that after speaking with Megrahi’s son “this is not the end of the matter” as the “reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system both domestically and internationally has suffered greatly due to widespread doubts about the conviction of Mr al- Megahi”.
The lawyer said: “On December 21, 1988, 270 people from 21 countries were killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed in the UK.
Since then, the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted of the crime, has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
“It has been eight long years for my legal team, but for the families we represent it has been 33 long years of fighting for truth and justice. Unfortunately, that battle is not over yet.”