New evidence from a former security officer, which has emerged since the Lockerbie trial, will be core to the appeal of the Libyan convicted for the 1988 bombing, a court heard yesterday.
Counsel for Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan secret agent sentenced to life for murdering 270 people on the aircraft, told a pre-appeal hearing at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands the security guard gave a statement to police in 1989 but it was never passed on to prosecutors.
Recent reports have cited a former security guard at Heathrow airport who said a luggage bay was broken into just hours before New York-bound Pan Am flight 103 took off from London on December 21st, 1988.
The defence counsel, Mr William Taylor, told the special Scottish court at a former US airbase the unnamed individual came forward after Megrahi's conviction.
The former guard has said he found a heavy-duty padlock protecting Pan Am's baggage area at Heathrow had been sliced through hours before flight 103 departed, meaning a bomb could have been planted in luggage already X-rayed and cleared for loading.
Central to the nine-month trial, which saw Libyan co-accused Mr Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima acquitted, was the judges' acceptance the suitcase bomb was loaded in Malta on a flight to Frankfurt, from where it flew to London to be put on to the jet.
Other people gave police statements in 1989 that were never handed on to prosecutors, Mr Taylor said.
Top international lawyers are advising Megrahi's defence on the appeal. They include Prof Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, who was on the O.J. Simpson defence team, and Mr Frank Rubino, who represented Gen Manuel Noriega of Panama on charges of racketeering and money laundering. Mr Rubino has said the appeal could include allegations that evidence was improperly removed from or planted at the crash site and also question judges' handling of witness testimony. The presiding judge, Lord Cullen, set January 23rd for the start of the appeal.
The hearing began with a plea by the sister of a Spanish stewardess killed over Lockerbie for an independent review, saying the full truth had not come out at the trial. Judges refused Ms Marina de Larracoechea petition, saying the appeal could only examine evidence heard at the trial plus any extra evidence presented by Megrahi's counsel. Ms de Larracoechea said she was convinced neither Megrahi nor Mr Fahima were guilty and that the original line of investigation that pointed to Palestinian extremists was more credible.