Edinburgh, Thursday 6th March 2008
1. The appeal judges panel have ruled against any disclosure of the secret report, said to concern the history of the bomb fragment which British forensic scientist Dr Thomas Hayes claimed to have discovered in May 1989. In the opinion of the judges, Miliband has a duty to protect British Security interests, whereas the Lord Advocate of Scotland and the Al-Megrahi defence team have but an opinion. Duty overrides opinion. Sadly, whenever the words "national security" are spoken, they also override truth and justice. Hence no agreement so far to release the secret document to the defence, although it seems that dozens of folk in the police force and Scottish Crown office, and at least one person on the SCCRC, have seen it.
2. The defence team and prosecution have, however, been invited to make further written submissions regarding the secret report. Whether this will move matters forward seems doubtful. The reasons put forward by Miliband include the need to protect from public scrutiny the methods used by intelligence services of various nations in their international cooperation. Even after twenty years since the bombing, this factor still weighs against truth in case of the murder of 270 innocents in the skies over Lockerbie. A sad commentary on the way that our nation is ruled.
3. There will be at least one further hearing before the three appeal judges.
The first, said to be a three day hearing, will concern itself with the written submissions mentioned in (2) above. They will also consider the scope of the appeal - i.e. what evidence and witnesses will be allowed. Will they be restricted to the six grounds for appeal listed by the SCCRC in its ruling that an appeal should be allowed? Or will the appeal go wider? Shall the defence be given access to all the forensic evidence available to the prosecution at the original trial, or not? If they are given access to such forensic evidence, will they be allowed to test items not tested for the original trial? And will they be allowed - with the help of an independent person or persons - to have tested evidence already tested by the forensic services during 1989? The implications of the judges' decisions on these matters are considerable, and may break new ground in Scottish legal history.
4. After that, the judges have made clear that they wish matters to proceed to a second appeal. The three judges will be joined by a further two senior judges. The date may have been canvassed between the parties, but so far, no public announcement regarding a date seems imminent.
We will update this site as further news as it comes in.
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