Stephen Khan, Camp Zeist
Sunday January 27, 2002
The Observer

They are superstars of law who have represented some of the world's most famous and infamous defendants, but the giants of televised court cases are having very little impact on the appeal of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

Perhaps the most formidable legal lineup ever assembled is advising and reporting on the appeal and at its heart is Dr Ibrahim Legwell, the Libyan solicitor closest to Megrahi. Showboating high-earners of the US scene have been called in along with leading British lawyers Michael Mansfield and Clive Nichols.

Among them are Miami-based Frank Rubino, the man who defended the Panamanian dictator General Manuel Noriega against drug charges; Monica Lewinsky's lawyer Plato Cacheris; the acclaimed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who acted for O. J. Simpson; and Michael Armstrong, the lawyer for the former world heavyweight boxing champion Hasim Rahman.

The problem for this legal dream team is that Megrahi's defence is two-pronged - and the one they are working for is decidedly blunt.

The real defence is being mounted by Megrahi's Scottish solicitor, Alistair Duff, and William Taylor, a highly experienced criminal advocate and the first person to hold the rank of QC in both Scotland and England. Adorned in robes and wigs, they may sit by Legwell in Camp Zeist's high-security court as they put the appeal to the five judges, but they have very little to do with him.

Legwell has said he would consult the international legal team for further advice before passing it on to 'our Scottish defence team so they can adapt it to Scots law'. In reality, it is the Scots who are in the driving seat. The defence teams are financed by Libyan money, raised through a legal aid system which makes its way via Legwell to the Scottish and international players.

A source close to the defence said: 'There is not a lot of discussion between the Scottish team and the Libyan and the multinational team. They look at each other with utter contempt, but it is more the Scots directing that look towards Legwell's people. They won't talk to them, won't meet them and refuse to take advice from them.

'There haven't been any blazing rows; the Scots have simply been telling the rest of them to piss off.'

Taylor, 56, is a big, bluff, bespectacled man whose approach could not be more different from that of Americans such as Dershowitz and Rubino, who have turned court cases into dramas watched by millions on television. The Lockerbie appeal is the first British court case to hit our screens but it is becoming clear that Taylor is simply not cut out for broadcast media. When asked by The Observer about the advocate's style, Bob Black, professor of law at Edinburgh University and architect of the Lockerbie trial, described it as 'like watching paint dry'.

Beneath the contrasting styles, however, is real concern among those close to Legwell that the Scottish defence is flawed and the appeal is destined to fail. They feel new evidence to be brought regarding a broken padlock in a baggage handling area of Heathrow is irrelevant. 'I can't see that there is much value in bringing this evidence forward,' said a defence source. 'I don't see how it can prove the bomb was put on the aircraft in London.'

It is widely accepted that for the appeal to succeed the defence must break the chain of events that suggest a device was placed aboard an aircraft in Malta, before being transferred at Frankfurt and making its way through Heathrow and subsequently blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 people who died that night, said the appeal was going much as expected but he felt that an aspect of the defence has been weak all along. 'I feel that they have never really developed a defence of incrimination.' Swire also believes evidence which may imply the involvement of others has not been brought forward.

Since the bombing, many investigators have suspected that Iran and Syria, not Libya, were most likely to have ordered the bombing. Just six months before Flight 103 was blown up, an Iranian civilian airliner was destroyed by a missile fired the US warship USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf, with the loss of 290 lives.