Lockerbie bombing: Judges reject Lockerbie Megrahi family’s bid to appeal to UK’s highest court

Judges have refused the Lockerbie bomber’s family permission to take an appeal against his conviction to the UK’s highest court.

The bombing of Pan Am flight 103, travelling from London to New York on December 21 1988, killed 270 people in Britain’s largest terrorist atrocity.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of mass murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years – the only person convicted of the attack.

 In a written judgment issued on Thursday 1 April by Lord Carloway, the Lord Justice General, said the court “has had some difficulty in understanding the exact nature of the challenge”.

It said: “Although the case is clearly one of public importance, the proposed grounds of appeal do not raise points of law of general public importance.

“The principles of law which  the court applied were all well known, settled and largely uncontroversial in the appeal.

“For these reasons, the court refuses permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.”

Aamer Anwar, the family’s lawyer, told the Herald newspaper they will now seek leave to appeal directly to the UK Supreme Court, the final court of appeal for the case.