CAMP ZEIST, Netherlands (AP) — Lawyers for a former Libyan intelligence agent appealed his conviction in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and asked a Scottish court Wednesday to hear new testimony disputing when and where the lethal bomb was placed on board the Pan Am flight.
At the opening of the hearing, defense attorney William Taylor said he wanted to call a witness to testify about a security breach at London's Heathrow Airport, challenging the conclusion that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi had placed the bomb on a plane in Malta. The court indicated it might delay ruling on the defense request until hearing more of the evidence.
Al-Megrahi was convicted one year ago of multiple murders for the deaths of 270 people in the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and was sentenced to life in prison. His alleged accomplice, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.
Prosecutor Alan Turnbull said al-Megrahi's appeal was materially "insufficient" to overturn the conviction. The hearings at a former U.S. military base converted into a court facility could last several weeks.
The hearing was the first time television cameras were allowed inside a British courtroom.
Before the hearing, al-Megrahi's family walked to the courthouse carrying signs in English and Arabic expressing sympathy for the victims of the crash but calling for an acquittal.
"We sympathize with the families of the victims and feel their pain. We pray for justice to reveal the truth," one sign read.
"Father you are a kind man and that is why we love you. Kind people don't harm others. We believe in your innocence and hope the others do," said another held by his son, Muhammad.
Lawyers for al-Megrahi submitted the written grounds for the appeal in June, taking nearly five months to draft the legal reasoning to quash the case against their client. Their arguments were not made public until the appellate hearing began.
Libyan attorney Ibrahim Legwell, advising the Scottish defense team, said he and al-Megrahi expect to overturn the conviction.
"He is fully confident he is innocent," Legwell told BBC television on Tuesday.
To quash the conviction, Scottish law requires that the defense prove a "miscarriage of justice" or present significant new evidence that could not have been heard in the earlier trial.
Al-Megrahi, 49, will be eligible for parole in 20 years.
The Lockerbie trial has gained new meaning since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, as leaders look for ways to bring to justice those accused of terrorism, such as members of the al-Qaida network under Osama bin Laden.
Families of the Lockerbie victims — which included 179 Americans — were preparing to sit Pe Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi the suspects would receive a fair trial.
An eight-page summary of the appeal said the defense had obtained two affidavits from Raymond Walter Manly, a security guard at Heathrow, indicating that in the two hours before the ill-fated flight left London a padlock had been broken on a gate leading to the baggage area.
The defense said it had not been aware of Manly's evidence at the time of the trial. The guard gave his depositions last February and March, a few weeks after the Jan. 31 verdict.
Police, who interviewed Manly after the bombing, apparently did not pursue the lead or share the information with prosecutors. The defense learned about him only after he was interviewed by the British press after the trial.
In a second argument, defense lawyers said the trial court "ignored or failed to give proper regard" to facts undermining the testimony of a shopkeeper from Malta who claimed al-Megrahi bought clothes in his store that were later identified as those used to pad the bomb inside the suitcase.
In an 82-page ruling, the trial court accepted the prosecution's case that al-Megrahi was a senior figure in Libyan intelligence and had sent the bomb unaccompanied in a bag from Malta via Frankfurt and London.
But the appeal argues the identification of al-Megrahi by the shopkeeper, Toni Gauci, was shaky and that the date of the purchase of the clothing was doubtful.
Unlike the main trial when the prosecution had to prove its case, the burden of proof is on the defense in the appeal. The prosecution, or Crown, need do nothing more than say that trial judges had come to the correct verdict.