Scottish judges call for secret Lockerbie papers
EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Scotland's top judge called on the British government on Thursday to provide him with two secret documents relating to the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.
The papers have been cited as crucial to an appeal by former Libyan secret agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi against his conviction for the bombing, in which 270 people were killed.
Lord Hamilton, sitting with two other appeal court judges in Edinburgh, said the lawyer representing the government should "produce for the court the documents in question ... subject to appropriate security measures being in place within seven days."
He said the judges would consider the documents, which British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has declared secret under a Public Interest Immunity (PII) order.
Advocate General Lord Davidson, representing the government in a three-day hearing which ended on Thursday, said it believed public disclosure of the documents would result in "real harm to the UK national security and international relations."
He conceded that under Scottish law, which is distinct from the law in England, the final decision on whether the documents were produced in open court lay with the court of appeal.
Lord Hamilton said the judges would weigh up how important it was that the appeal be heard in a closed court, to which not even the defense team could be admitted for security reasons.
Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of bombing the Pan Am jumbo jet en route from London to New York over the southern Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 18, 1988. In all, 270 people, including 189 Americans, died.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and is held in a prison near Glasgow. An initial appeal was rejected in 2002.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said last year that Megrahi was entitled to another appeal on the grounds he might have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
A document uncovered by the commission and understood to contain information on the timer used in the aircraft bomb is regarded as a key element in the appeal.
The government has refused to release this document and a related document to the defense, citing national security.
Government and defense lawyers clashed during the three-day hearing over how the full appeal might be conducted.
Issues included the use of the PII order and the appointment of a government-vetted lawyer, who might represent Megrahi's interests in a closed court but who would not be allowed to talk to his defense team after seeing the documents.
A further open session of the appeal court will be held on June 17-18 to discuss the scope of the appeal.
(Editing by Tim Pearce)
