Lockerbie bomber to appeal his conviction
Eddie MacKechnie, who is representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, said the Libyan's trial was unfair because of
extensive pre-trial publicity and shortcomings in his defence.
Megrahi, 50, was jailed for life last year at a specially-convened Scottish court in the Netherlands.
Three judges found him guilty of murdering the 270 people who died in the December 1988 atrocity.
Yesterday his legal team lodged a petition with the Strasbourg-based human rights' court claiming Megrahi's human rights had been breached at the trial.
A team of barristers and advocates from England and Scotland, led by leading human rights lawyer Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC, has been drawn together to work on the case, as well as a Libyan attorney.
Speaking at a press conference in Glasgow, Mr MacKechnie said he believed Megrahi, currently held in solitary confinement at the city's Barlinnie jail, was the victim of a
"serious miscarriage of justice".
He claimed Government officials from the US and Britain publicly asserted his client's guilt before the trial started and accused America of being "selective" with the intelligence it allowed the court to see.
A total of 259 people on board Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground were killed when the jumbo jet was ripped apart by a bomb as it flew over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.
Although the European court in Strasbourg has no formal power to overturn the decision of a Scottish court, Mr MacKechnie said he believed the Government would bow to the inevitable if the judgment went against it. Mr MacKechnie said Megrahi was optimistic about his prospects of bringing a
successful complaint, adding that he was not interested in financial compensation.
He said: "I can say honestly that he is in no way interested in financial gain.
"He wishes to be acquitted of this charge and to be seen as innocent of any involvement whatsoever in this dreadful affair.
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