December 8, 1999. Copyright, 1999, Graphic News. All rights reserved

NEW YEAR BRINGS HOPE FOR LOCKERBIE FAMILIES
By Elisabeth Ribbans

LONDON, December 8, Graphic News:  RELATIVES OF the 270 people who died when a bomb exploded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie are facing a twelfth Christmas and new year without their loved ones. But for the first time since the December 1988 tragedy, the families have real hope of seeing those thought to be responsible brought to trial.
On February 2, the two Libyan suspects, Abdel-Baset Ali al-Megrahi, 47, and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, 43, are due to stand trial at a specially created Scottish court in The Netherlands. It has been confirmed that they will face charges of conspiracy to murder, murder and breaches of the Aviation Security Act.

The trial will be the biggest mass murder trial in Scottish history and the first time a Scottish court has sat outside Scotland. It will also be the first time a Scottish criminal case has been heard without a jury of 15 lay people. Instead, the case is to be heard by three senior Scottish judges after Libya expressed concerns over the impartiality of a Scottish jury. Eleven residents of the small Scots town of Lockerbie were among those killed when wreckage from the jet, en route from London to New York, crashed onto their neighbourhood.

For many years it seemed the case would never come to trial. Britain and the U.S. issued arrest warrants for the two men as long ago as 1991 but Libya refused to surrender Megrahi and Fhimah, saying it had no extradition treaty with the two western countries. The following year, the UN imposed sanctions on Libya after it refused a Security Council request for the suspects to be handed over.

A breakthrough looked likely in 1984 when the Libyan defence team said they would consider a trial at a neutral venue, but Britain and the U.S. insisted the case should be heard in either of their countries. Of the dead, who came from 21 countries, 188 were American.
The impasse continued until 1988 when Britain and the U.S. agreed to a trial under Scottish law and procedure to be held at a disused air base near the Dutch capital. The defendants were handed over in the Netherlands in April 1999 and will not set foot on Scottish soil unless it is at their own request, or to serve sentences if found guilty. For the duration of the trial, the base has been designated UK territory and will be known as Her MajestyÕs Prison Camp Zeist.

The judges, presided over by Lord Sutherland Ð ScotlandÕs representative to the International Association of Judges Ð will have the same powers as a judge and jury sitting in Scotland and may return verdicts of guilty, not proven or not guilty. Any appeal either during or after the trial could be heard either in the Netherlands or in Scotland, but the latter could be chosen only if the accused were not required to attend.

In the 11 years since the tragedy, there have been many theories put forward regarding the identity of the culprits. It has even been reported that Megrahi and Fhimah may seek to turn the blame on one of the prosecution witnesses, a convicted Palestinian terrorist who is currently in prison in Sweden. But the prosecutionÕs case will argue that Megrahi and Fhimah, as members of the Libyan Intelligence Services, caused a suitcase containing a Semtex-type plastic explosive to be placed on board a plane at Malta and transferred to the doomed flight at Frankfurt which was heading for London and New York.

On December 7, the defendants attended a pre-trial hearing to argue that they could not be tried for conspiracy as the alleged plot took place outside Scotland. But the judge ruled against them, saying that conspiracy continued until it was abandoned or its aim completed and that if the purpose was to offend against the peace of Scotland it could be tried by a Scottish court. The case is expected to last for a year, as 1,000 witnesses are called to give evidence.
/ENDS