THE evidence against two Libyans accused of murdering 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing is "fatally flawed", says a leading barrister.
Michael Mansfield, QC, will tomorrow tell a BBC Frontline Scotland documentary that information crucial to the British and US governments' version of events is inconsistent and would not stand up in court.
His remarks come as a hearing begins in the International Court of Justice in the Hague to try to resolve a dispute between Britain and the United States and Libya over where the pair, Abdelbaset Ali Muhammed Al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, should be tried.
Mr Mansfield, who was involved in the successful appeals for the Birmingham Six and the Bridgewater Three, has cast doubt on forensic evidence behind the "Malta Theory", favoured by Britain and the US, that the suspects planted the bomb on Pan Am flight 103 by hiding it in luggage transferred from a Maltese plane at Frankfurt airport.
He says there is no firm evidence that the suitcase-bomb started its journey at Luqa Airport in Malta or that the Libyans planted it. He says the chain of events are suspicion and allegation, not concrete evidence.
The barrister, who has examined the evidence gathered by BBC journalists from key witnesses, says of the Maltese connection: "Were it to be presented to a court in the UK, it probably wouldn't even get past the doors. It would be declared ; inadmissible evidence because it is so fatally flawed."
After the bombing in December 1988, suspicion fell on a number of Middle Eastern terrorist organisations, including the PFLP-GC, which had links with the Iranian government and a base in Germany. Fingers were pointed at the Libyans only after the discovery of a fragment of a computer circuit-board in the wreckage, which FBI forensic specialists said was a bomb timer used solely by a Libyan terrorist group.
But the one-hour BBC programme, Silence over Lockerbie, quotes a Swiss arms dealer admitting that identical timers, known as MST-13s, were sold to the East German police, the Stasi, who were known to have links with the PFLP-GC.
The programme also reveals that Thomas Thurman, the FBI specialist who linked the timer to the Libyans, has since been investigated over allegations that he routinely tampered with forensic reports. Mr Mansfield says: "The biggest mistake ; is to believe that forensic science is somehow beyond reproach. It is not."
He also warns that the testimony of a Libyan "supergrass", who was instrumental in identifying the two suspects as the bombers, might be regarded as unreliable or even inadmissible evidence.
Mr Mansfield's views come as the families of the dead suffered a further blow when it emerged that a Libyan offer to hand over the suspects for trial in a neutral country 18 months ago had been blocked by British and US authorities.
London and Washington have refused to countenance a trial in a third country - something even the families of the victims have campaigned for in an effort to gain justice.
Dr Jim Swire, a spokesman for the Lockerbie families, who lost his 23-year-old daughter, Flora, in the bombing, says on the programme: "We have a fundamental lack of trust that we're being told the truth ; and that makes me deeply angry.
"Every day, we have to remember that she's gone and nobody can even be bothered to get their finger out and find out who did it and punish them."
Speaking from the Hague, Dr Swire added: "The purpose of the visit is to remind all those involved that this is not about politicians but the brutal, mass murder of 270 people. It's about time we got some justice.
"The families are deeply angry after nine years, and six years of indictments, that still nobody managed to convene a court to try them in. We are after some truth and justice."
Scotland on Sunday yesterday reported that the two Libyan suspects had been flown to Cairo 18 months ago in readiness for being handed over for trial in the Hague, but they were returned home when a diplomatic deal fell through.
This week's hearing in the Hague before 16 international judges is expected to last until 22 October.
This news was taken from THE SCOTSMAN, Scotlands leading newspaper....
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