Lockerbie bomb documents ordered by judges

LONDON, May 30 (UPI) -- Two confidential documents relating to the 1988 Lockerbie terrorist bombing must be handed over by the British government, a Scottish court has ordered.

The Court of Criminal Appeal ordered the material to be submitted within seven days. The three-judge panel said they would then determine whether the documents should be given to attorneys for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, reported The (Glasgow) Herald Friday. Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence agent convicted of planting the bomb on Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people.

One of the two documents is thought to come from another country and to contain information about the timer used to detonate the Lockerbie bomb, the report said. It was earlier uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which referred the case back to the courts for a new appeal saying that failure to disclose the document could constitute a miscarriage of justice.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband lodged a claim of "public interest immunity," saying that disclosing the document, and a second related one, would cause "real harm" to national security and international relations, reported the Herald.