The legal expert who founded Glasgow University's unique Lockerbie trial briefing unit has expressed concern over the judges' guilty verdict against one of the Libyan accused.
John Grant, formerly a human rights specialist at Glasgow, is a professor of law in the United States, at Lewis & Clark School of Law in Portland, Oregon, and visiting professor at Scotland's Napier University. He was speaking in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the Glasgow unit he set up in 1999 to help the media cover the trial of the two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103. The trial took place in the Netherlands under Scots law, and the Glasgow law school's website, handbook and seminars strove to ensure that journalists understood the process.
But Professor Grant said this week that the judges' reasons did not appear to justify the decision. And he attacked a section in the judgment on the identification of convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi as "the most bizarre stating of the law of Scotland I have ever seen".
The three High Court judges said they accepted that Maltese shop owner Tony Gauci had never made "what could be described as an absolutely positive identification" of Mr al-Megrahi, but said it would have been surprising had he been able to do so given the passage of time. They were, nevertheless, satisfied that his identification was reliable "so far as it went" and should be treated as an important element in the case.
But Professor Grant said: "I find the identification evidence of Mr Gauci implausible."
Clare Connelly, the Lockerbie trial briefing unit's director, said it was not the unit's role to comment on the content of the judgment. "Our role is to advise and help understand the legal process."
The most complex issue to be explained was that of circumstantial evidence, she said. "It is more complex to follow because it does not all hinge on one or two witnesses' evidence. It is like a spider's web of evidence." The trial briefing unit has not only been used by the world's media, including the Arab press, but has been praised by the families of those who died. The Lockerbie website has had more than 3 million visitors.