Lockerbie appeal extension granted

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- The Libyan secret agent jailed for the Lockerbie bombing has been granted an extra six weeks to prepare his appeal against conviction.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was sentenced in January to life imprisonment with a recommendation he serves at least 20 years.

Al-Megrahi announced on February 7 that he would be appealing against the conviction. He was given a statutory six weeks from that date 21 to provide full written reasons for the appeal.

Now lawyers acting for him have been granted extra time to draw up the formal grounds, a court official said.

"The lawyers have been granted an extension of six weeks from March 21," a spokesman for Edinburgh's High Court of Justiciary said.

Legal sources have said that the defence would most likely focus on facts accepted by the trial judges but which might be open to question.

Al-Megrahi was convicted on January 31 of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, in which 270 people died.

His co-accused, Libyan Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, was acquitted after their nine-month trial in a Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in The Netherlands.

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Under Scottish law there is no automatic right of appeal, and once the written grounds have been submitted, a judge will decide whether the appeal can go ahead.

If it is granted, a full hearing before a panel of five Scottish judges will take place, probably in the second half of this year.

If Al-Megrahi wishes, it will be held at Camp Zeist, where he is being held. Otherwise, a hearing will be held in Scotland.

Al-Megrahi's lawyers were unavailable for immediate comment, and the court spokesmen said that any reasons for the appeal extension were treated as confidential.

The judges said they accepted that Al-Megrahi, whom they called a senior figure in Libyan intelligence, sent the bomb in an unaccompanied suitcase from Malta.

He maintained his innocence throughout the trial. His lawyers insisted he had nothing to do with the bombing and said it was actually carried out by Palestinian terrorists.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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