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CNN's Richard Blystone at Camp Zeist

Blystone

CNN Senior International Correspondent Richard Blystone was at Camp Zeist as the verdicts were returned at the end of the marathon Lockerbie bombing trial.

Q: What was the atmosphere like in the courtroom when the verdicts were read?

Blystone: When the verdicts were announced Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi stared straight ahead showing no emotion. On the other side of the bullet-proof glass, American and British relatives of the victims gasped. Dr Jim Swire, whose 21-year-old daughter's death has consumed much of his life for the past 12 years, collapsed. He was led away for medical treatment and but later pronounced to be in good condition.

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Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah also stared straight ahead as he was found not guilty. Dressed in Libyan robes with a dark cap, he turned to Al-Megrahi and appeared to say a few words before he was lead away. The whole proceeding, including the recording of the verdict took only a few minutes compared to 84 days for the trial itself.

Q: Will Al-Megrahi appeal?

Blystone: Al-Megrahi's Scottish lawyer William Taylor told the court he would not be offering any plea for mitigation to reduce the sentence, declaring that his client is innocent.

Taylor has two weeks to notify the court of his intention to appeal and six weeks to file the actual application. If granted, the appeal would be heard before five different judges for the same Scottish court at Camp Zeist if Al-Megrahi wants to be present, otherwise in Edinburgh, Scotland if he does not.

The sentence came after a three-hour break. Leading judge Lord Sutherland said he was taking into account Al-Megrahi's age, 48, and the one year 10 months he had already spent in prison in Camp Zeist in decreeing that Al-Megrahi must serve a total of 20 years before being permitted to apply for parole. There is no guarantee that parole would be granted, but if it was granted, Al-Megrahi would be deported to Libya.

Q: How did the relatives react to the verdict?

Blystone: Relatives of the Lockerbie victims who had been pleased with the guilty verdict were not pleased with the minimum length of the sentence. Peter Lowenstein, the father of a 21-year-old student who was killed, reacted by saying that it amounted to less than one month for each of the 270 dead.

Brian Flynn, whose brother was killed, demanded that the U.S. resume full sanctions against the Libyan regime of Moammar Gadhafi. Libya has asserted that it was not on trial at Camp Zeist, and that the bombing could not be placed at the door of the regime, but the charges of murder against Al-Megrahi and Fhimah says that they acted in concert "in the furtherance of the purposes of the Libyan intelligence services."

Eight hours after being pronounced innocent, Fhimah, 44, stepped into a Dutch limousine and waved at cameras as he was driven out of Camp Zeist. His return to Libya is out of the hands of Scotland, and is a joint Dutch-U.N. operation.

Q: How did the legal teams react?

Blystone: Lord Advocate, Chief Prosecutor Colin Boyd declined to comment on the trial itself, but said his case had been the result of "a remarkable piece of detective work" by investigators from many countries. He named, besides Britain, Scotland and the U.S., Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and Malta.

Q: How has this affected relations between Libya and Britain and the U.S.?

Blystone: There have been calls in the U.S. for pressure on Libya to disavow terrorism, to disclose everything the regime may know about the bombing and to pay compensation to relatives of victims. Britain has said its relationship with Libya, which warmed up markedly after Gadhafi agreed to extradite the two for trial in 1999, would not change. However, Britain did not rule out damages under the terms of the United Nations' sanctions applied in the early 90s.

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