BLUEMOMENT

The appeal, by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, that documents "issued by a foreign government to prosecutors" prior to his trial, but not seen by the defence. looks as though it has failed. As a non-legal lay person, that seems, to me, to go against the concept of natural justice under Scots law, ie relevant materials normally made available to both prosecution and defence.

Equally interesting is the view of UK Foreign Secretary, who has said that further publication of the documents could compromise British security. Why? As it happens I have a general high regard for David Miliband, but I do not understand either why documents, believed to be material, cannot be submitted to court. To be fair, Miliband is not interfering in Scots legal process, as there are disclosure issues that arise purely within Scots Law as the Lord Advocate has accepted that it "would be appropriate to disclose the document but also recognised that the (UK) Advocate General was entitled to claim immunity".

It would be a great shame, imho, both for the due process of Mr Megrahi's appeal, and for the families of the Lockerbie victims, if the "truth" was submerged in a constitutional squabble between the legal system of Scotland and the political expediency of any UK government interest. I think we all deserve better.

Always a difficult issue, but I would have thought with an appeal, as opposed to a trial, there would be a way of hearing that bit of the case in camera.

Don't know much about the Scottish system, I assume there is a court of appeal with 3 judges, much same as England.

Is the House of Lords the the final call for Scottish law?

Always had the feeling with the Lockerbie case that Libya was under such pressure to produce SOMEbody that no one was not too fussy who they were.