Little was made yesterday of the fact that it was the 17th anniversary of the announcement by the then Lord Advocate and the US Acting Attorney General that arrest warrants were being issued for the two Libyans accused of bombing PanAm flight 103.

Little was made yesterday of the fact that it was the 17th anniversary of the announcement by the then Lord Advocate and the US Acting Attorney General that arrest warrants were being issued for the two Libyans accused of bombing PanAm flight 103.

Few would remember the date, yet the tenacity of those who do is testament to their endurance and the sheer scale of this case and its interminable delays.

Next month is the 20th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy that caused the deaths of 270 people yet for many there has been no resolution.

It has taken two decades to come this far. There are, some would argue, those who would prefer not to see the details of the case unravelled and paraded in a public courtroom and to whom the idea of infinite delay is very alluring.

Yesterday, as Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, had his request for interim liberation rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the atrocity, declared his intention to continue with the appeal regardless.

Megrahi, too, vowed to continue with the appeal. He is terminally ill, having been diagnosed with "incurable" prostate cancer earlier this year.

Depending on Megrahi's response to hormonal treatment, the judges said he may have years to live.

However, the fresh appeal, due to start next year, is expected to be complex and protracted. For those still waiting for answers, the conclusion is set to be a long way off.

The court has yet to decide, for example, whether Megrahi's defence team should be granted access to a top-secret document unearthed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, pertaining to the timing device used to detonate the bomb.

The commission said the Crown's failure to disclose the document could in itself mean the conviction was a miscarriage of justice but the UK Government has persistently argued that it should not be handed over, as a matter of national security.

This is just one of the many twists and turns yet to be navigated by the defence.

Although the court has refused to grant bail to Megrahi at this stage, he has the option of applying again to the court at a later date or applying to Scottish ministers for release on "compassionate" grounds.

However, yesterday's judgment made clear that he does not yet fit the main criterion for such a request - that of having less than three months to live.

Last night the Scottish Government confirmed that no such request has yet been made, and it is difficult to predict how ministers would react in such circumstances.

Professor Robert Black, one of the architects of the original trial at Camp Zeist, expressed his disappointment at the decision outside the court but said he was "not surprised", given the importance the court attached to the gravity of the offence.

Tam Dalyell, the former Labour MP who has long argued Megrahi's innocence, said he disagreed with the ruling.

"If I thought that either his country or Mr Megrahi had anything to do with the crime that was Lockerbie, I would agree with the judges," he said.

"But since I am convinced that he had nothing whatever do to with the downing of PanAm flight 103, I am very disappointed."

However, Robert Monetti, from New Jersey, whose son, Rick, died in the atrocity, supported the decision to keep Megrahi behind bars.

"His defence team have failed to come up with anything that would suggest that Megrahi isn't guilty," he said.

"He should be in jail - the man killed 270 people, has not even admitted his guilt, and we are supposed to be compassionate towards him?"