The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court in Scotland. The High Court is both a trial court and a court of appeal. As a trial court, the High Court sits on circuit at Parliament House or in the adjacent former Sheriff Court building in the Old Town in Edinburgh, or in dedicated buildings in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The High Court sometimes sits in various smaller towns in Scotland, where it uses the local sheriff court building. As an appeal court, the High Court sits only in Edinburgh. On one occasion the High Court of Justiciary sat outside Scotland, at Zeist in the Netherlands during the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, as the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. At Zeist the High Court sat both as a trial court, and an appeal court for the initial appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Peter Lovat Fraser, Baron Fraser of Carmyllie, PC, QC was a Scottish politician and advocate.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi was a Libyan who was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli, Libya, and an alleged Libyan intelligence officer. On 31 January 2001, Megrahi was convicted, by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, of 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. His co-accused, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was found not guilty and was acquitted.
Lamin Khalifah Fhimah is a former station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa Airport, Malta. On 31 January 2001, he was acquitted of 270 counts of murder in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist, Netherlands, in light of evidence that he was in Sweden at the time of the bombing and therefore could not have been a participant. His co-accused, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was found guilty by unanimous decision of the court and sentenced to life imprisonment, but later released on compassionate grounds, having always maintained his innocence.
The Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial began on 3 May 2000, more than 11 years after the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988. The 36-week bench trial took place at a specially convened Scottish Court in the Netherlands set up under Scots law and held at a disused United States Air Force base called Camp Zeist near Utrecht.
The investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 began at 19:03 on December 21, 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103, en route from Frankfurt to Detroit with stopovers in London and New York City, was blown up over Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The perpetrators had intended the plane to crash into the sea, destroying any traceable evidence, but the late departure time of the aircraft meant that its explosion over land left a veritable trail of evidence. The investigation led to the prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Pan Am Flight 103 conspiracy theories suggest a number of possible explanations for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. Some of the theories preceded the official investigation by Scottish police and the FBI; others arose from different interpretation of evidence presented at Libyan agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's 2000–2001 trial; yet others have been developed independently by individuals and organisations outside the official investigation.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government, established by the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.
Edwin Bollier and his partner, Erwin Meister, founded Mebo Telecommunications AG in Zürich, Switzerland in 1969.
Robert Black is Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh. He has been an Advocate in Scotland since 1972, was in practice at the Bar and became a QC in 1987.
Herbert Swire, known better as Jim Swire, is an English doctor best known for his involvement in the aftermath of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which his daughter Flora was killed. Swire lobbied toward a solution for the difficulties in bringing suspects in the original bombing to trial, and later advocated the retrial and release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the originally convicted suspect in the case.
Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary was the territorial police force responsible for Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland until 1 April 2013.
Tony Gauci was the proprietor of Mary's House, a clothes shop in Sliema, Malta, who was a witness in the prosecution of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in relation to the Lockerbie Bombing.
Pan Am Flight 103 (PA103/PAA103) was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by Clipper Maid of the Seas, a Boeing 747 registered N739PA. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, while the aircraft was in flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, it was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie, killing 11 residents. With a total of 270 fatalities, it is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom.
Hans Köchler's Lockerbie trial observer mission stemmed from the dispute between the United Kingdom, the United States, and Libya concerning arrangements for the trial of two Libyans accused of causing the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.
Mebo Telecommunications AG is owned by Swiss businessmen Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted on 31 January 2001 by a special Scottish Court in the Netherlands for the bomb attack on Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988 over Lockerbie. After he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, he was released from prison on compassionate grounds on 20 August 2009, having served 8½ years of a life sentence. His release was authorised by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. The decision attracted significant news coverage, engendering widespread celebration in Libya, a largely hostile reaction in the United States and a more equally divided reaction in Britain.
UN Security Council Resolution 1192, adopted unanimously on 27 August 1998, after recalling resolutions 731 (1992), 748 (1992) and 883 (1993), the council welcomed an initiative to try two Libyan suspects accused of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 before a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
The presidency of Nelson Mandela began on 10 May 1994, when Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist, leader of uMkhonto we Sizwe, lawyer, and former political prisoner, was inaugurated as President of South Africa, and ended on 14 June 1999. He was the first non-White head of state in the history of South Africa, taking office at the age of 75. His age was taken into consideration as part of his decision to not seek re-election in 1999.
Alistair John MacKenzie Duff is a former Scottish solicitor and sheriff who qualified as a solicitor-advocate in 1993, and later became Director of the Judicial Institute of Scotland before resigning after being arrested and charged with undisclosed offences.
