A key campaigner in the fight to discover the perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing collapsed and relatives wept yesterday as judges unanimously convicted a Libyan of the atrocity which claimed the lives of 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland over 12 years ago.
After eight months of evidence from 230 witnesses and tens of thousands of pages of reports and written statements, the climax of the costliest trial in British legal history - it has cost an estimated £50 million - took less than half an hour.
The three-judge Scottish court sitting on Dutch neutral soil unanimously found a Libyan intelligence officer, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi (49), guilty of mass murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He will have to serve a minimum of 20 years in jail before being eligible to apply for parole, they ruled.
His co-accused, Mr Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima (45), was acquitted and is expected to leave the Netherlands for Tripoli later this morning. After the verdicts, relatives said that alMegrahi's conviction had bolstered their case all along that the Libyan government was linked to the bombing. The relatives of US victims who started a civil action against Libya, claiming $10 billion, said they now plan to resume their campaign for compensation.
Within seconds of the judgment, a spokesman for the relatives, Dr Jim Swire - who lost his daughter, Flora, and who had sat through the 84 days of evidence - collapsed and was carried unconscious from the public gallery, to the consternation of other relatives.
Al-Megrahi - who wore ceremonial white robes and like his co-accused had remained impassive throughout - displayed no emotion when the guilty verdict was pronounced. There were gasps and wails of disbelief from a party of 20 Libyans, including relatives and diplomats, seated a few feet away behind bullet-proof glass. His elder brother, Mr Mohammed Ali, who had earlier given him a thumbs up and expected an acquittal, left in tears. He later confirmed reports on Libyan television that the guilty verdict would be appealed.
In the 82-page written verdict, the presiding judge, Lord Sutherland, said the court was completely satisfied of his guilt. Crucial evidence proved that alMegrahi, using a false passport, had arrived at Malta the day before an unaccompanied suitcase containing the bomb left on a flight to Frankfurt. The luggage was later transferred to the doomed US jumbo jet which exploded 30 minutes after leaving Heathrow on December 21st, 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground.
The accused Libyan had been identified as the person who bought clothing in a Maltese shop which was found among the wreckage and MST-13 timers identical to that which detonated the bomb, fragments of which were discovered at Lockerbie and had been sold to the Libyan Intelligence service or to the Libyan military.
Describing the actions of the second accused, Mr Fahima, a former Libyan Airlines station manager at Malta's Luqa airport, as "suspicious", the court ruled there was no evidence to show that he was involved in "a plan to destroy an aircraft by the planting of an explosive device".
Sentencing al-Megrahi, Lord Sutherland spoke of the "horrendous nature of the crime" and said the sentence would have been much heavier if they had not taken into consideration his advanced years on being released and that he would be serving his sentence in a foreign country. A special cell has been prepared for him, separate from other inmates at Glasgow's Barlinnie prison.
There is no automatic right of appeal under Scottish law and the expected appeal application by the convicted Libyan has to be screened by a panel of judges who decide whether it has merit or not.
Coming after 12 years of struggle, intrigue and diplomatic confrontation, relatives - there were more than 60 in court to hear the verdict - described feelings of relief but also disappointment that only one guilty verdict had been returned. Speaking to a wall of cameras and microphones outside the fortified court building where the world's media was assembled, Mr Bruce Smith of Bray in Berkshire, who lost his wife, Ingrid, in the Lockerbie bombing, said: "It's small consolation to us but most relatives are immensely gratified to have one guilty verdict. It will make continuing action against the Libyan government much simpler." Reuters adds: President Bush yesterday applauded the conviction and said the government of Libya must take responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile Libya yesterday called for a complete lifting of UN sanctions and said it sought better relations with the US following the verdict.