Relatives in court for first day of Lockerbie appeal

Senior judges heard that the health of Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, has deteriorated and that he would be unable to sit through a full day of proceedings.

Megrahi, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year, will be watching the appeal at HMP Greenock through a live video link. However, Margaret Scott QC, his defence advocate, said he would need to take breaks and attend medical appointments during the appeal.

Megrahi, 57, is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years after being convicted in 2001 of bombing Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 and murdering 270 people.

He lost his appeal in 2002 but was referred back to the courts in June 2007 by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) whose three-and-a-half year investigation found that his conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice on six different grounds.

Beginning legal submissions on Megrahi's behalf, Ms Scott QC told the court: "The appellant's position is that there has been a miscarriage of justice in this case."

She said the trial court, on the basis of "wholly circumstantial evidence", concluded it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that Megrahi was involved in the crime.

"In our submission, it was wrong to do so," she said.

She told them that Megrahi would require to take breaks due to pain and is to see doctors later this week over a new course of treatment.

The appeal is being heard by five judges headed by Scotland's senior judge, the Lord Justice General, Lord Hamilton, sitting with Lord Kingarth, Lord Eassie, Lord Wheatley and Lady Paton.

In the gallery were a number of relatives of victims of the tragedy, including Dr Jim Swire, the Reverend John Mosey, and Hairat Ade-Balogun, an international observer for the UN.

Ms Scott told the judges the trial court's conclusion centred on four "critical inferences".

These were that Megrahi bought the clothing which was in the suitcase containing the bomb, that the purchase happened on December 7 1988, that the buyer knew the purpose for which the clothing was bought, and that the suitcase containing the bomb was "ingested" at Luqa airport in Malta.

But Ms Scott told the court these were all areas of dispute.

"No reasonable jury, properly directed, could have drawn the critical inferences which were necessary to return that verdict of guilty," she said.

She also suggested other conclusions could have been drawn from the accepted evidence.

Megrahi's request for interim bail was last year turned down by three appeal court judges and there is concern that he may not survive the lengthy appeal process.

The Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) between Libya and the UK, which was signed by Westminster last year and is due to be ratified shortly, means that any Libyan serving a sentence in the UK, who has no pending appeal, could be returned home. Those in Scottish prisons could be moved only with the permission of Scottish ministers.

Libyan officials say they have been encouraged by senior civil servants from both sides of the border, including Robert Gordon, the head of the Justice Department in Scotland, to apply for Megrahi to be transferred as soon as the agreement is ratified.

Sequence of events June 2007: Referral from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC ) for a new appeal. September 25, 2007: Defence lodges petition for recovery of secret documents from an undisclosed foreign country. December 3, 2007: Defence team applies for authority to release productions for forensic examination. December 21, 2007: Full grounds of appeal lodged. February 20, 2008: Court hearing regarding the competency and relevancy of the public interest immunity claim made by the Advocate General for Scotland, in relation to the secret documents. May 27-28, 2008: Court hearing in respect of public interest immunity. May 29, 2008: Judges order that documents should be lodged with the court and a closed court hearing be assigned to determine the public interest immunity objection. June 17-20, 2008: Court hearing in relation to the Crown's challenge to the scope of the appeal. Matter taken to avizandum. October 15, 2008: Judges say that Megrahi not restricted to advancing only those grounds of appeal based SCCRC referral. November 14, 2008: Application for bail lodged by the defence team earlier is refused by the court. March 17, 2009: Crown told to recover specific calls for previously non-disclosed material. April 28, 2009: Appeal begins.

The defence team The team is led by Tony Kelly of Taylor & Kelly Solicitors, in Coatbridge. Specialising in civil liberties, he is well known for championing the rights of prisoners and took on hundreds of compensation claims after winning the case of Robert Napier, the remand prisoner who claimed his human rights had been breached whilst forced to slop out in Barlinnie.

Margaret Scott QC, was called to the Bar in 1991. Among those she has represented are Kim Galbraith and George McPhee, each of whose murder convictions were overturned on appeal. She has conducted a number of ground-breaking cases which have resulted in changes in the law. She specialises in human rights and has led a number of appeals before the Privy Council.

She was first instructed in the Lockerbie case following Megrahi's unsuccessful appeal in 2002.

Jamie Gilchrist QC, called to the Bar in 1994 having previously been a solicitor in private practice for nearly 10 years. According to the Legal 500 he "thinks outside the box and turns his hand to anything". He is a member of the regulatory crime team at Compass Chambers, specialising in practice areas ranging from health and safety and other regulatory offences to corporate, as well as general, crime.

Martin Richardson spent his early career as a solicitor in commercial practice and was called to the Bar in 2004. He has also appeared in a number of criminal appeals before the High Court of Justiciary, including a previous referral from the SCCRC . In 2005, he appeared successfully as a junior for the appellant in Reid v. HMA, a landmark human rights act case.