Libya was happy to receive the decision issued by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), saying that the bombing of a Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over the town of Lockerbie, in which Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was accused, “may have been a miscarriage of justice.”
Those close to the previous regime considered the announcement as a “victory for their country.”
SCCRC said Megrahi's family may now launch an appeal.
British newspaper Daily Mail had previously published excerpts of a new book by US author Douglas Boyd in October 2018, in which he refuted the hypothesis of Libya standing behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and included a reference to the role of Iran in it.
The Libyan intelligence officer was the only person convicted of the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. In 2001, he was found guilty of the murder of 243 passengers and 16 crew on the flight, as well as the murder of 11 people in Lockerbie.
He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years but died in 2012 after being released from prison on compassionate grounds.
Libyan political analyst Abdulaziz Al-Bashti told Asharq Al-Awsat on Wednesday that the decision would indicate a weakness in the evidence presented against him, which was the result of his condemnation.
The former Libyan intelligence officer continued to claim his innocence until his death in May 2012. But Scottish prosecutors insisted that the evidence against him was true.
Following the Daily Mail’s report of the possibility of Iran’s involvement, Al-Megrahi’s family demanded compensation for the period he spent in prison, while several parallel demands escalated within Libyan cities, talking about “the possibility of recovering the compensation paid by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime to the families of Lockerbie victims.”
