CAMP ZEIST, Netherlands, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Camp Zeist is a little piece of Scotland half an hour's drive from The Hague, the Netherlands' capital, and the site of the first ever televised trial in British legal history -- the appeal of the Libyan convicted in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing case.
For Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi and his family -- who staged a protest declaring his innocence outside the court -- the appeal hearing that began Wednesday is of crucial importance.
The 49-year-old former intelligence agent is serving a life sentence for the bomb attack which crashed Flight 103 into the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 residents. He will have to serve a minimum of 20 years if his appeal fails. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted at the trial in January 2001.
For the past year al-Megrahi has been the sole inmate of a prison created from an old nuclear bunker on the former U.S. base where the court is sitting.
The territory was officially ceded to Scotland as part of a compromise deal, enabling the trial to go ahead in a third country -- which Libya wanted -- but under Scottish law -- which Britain and the United States insisted on.
Lawyers for the Libyan claim there was a miscarriage of justice at the original trial. Their case is that the trial judges misunderstood and misinterpreted crucial evidence.
Bill Taylor, acting for al-Megrahi, said that new evidence has emerged since his conviction that could "tear holes" in the trial judges' ruling. The original trial -- in another unique feature -- took place before three judges, rather than a judge and jury.
Already Taylor has clashed with Lord Cullen, one of five appeal judges. In a terse exchange, Cullen declared, "I fail to see the relevance of that," to which Taylor replied sharply, "I'm coming to that."
Taylor has submitted a nine-page challenge to the original guilty verdict and claimed that the verdict was not one that "a reasonable jury" could have reached if had been given proper direction by a trial judge.
Now al-Megrahi's defense team say they want to introduce new evidence from a security guard who will say that there was a break-in at a baggage area at London's Heathrow airport on Dec. 21, 1988 -- the day the jumbo jet took off for New York.
Crucial to the case is whether the bomb which blew the plane apart was loaded at Malta -- as the prosecution claims -- or -- as the defense now says -- at Heathrow.
Broadcast of the proceedings -- though only of legal arguments, not testimony from witnesses -- has been allowed for the first time in any British court.
But despite announcing its live coverage with great fanfare, the British Broadcasting Corp. was forced to suspend its operation on day two when the case was adjourned.
The adjournment came on the day that America and Libya are reported close to a deal which would remove the oil-rich North African state from Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism in return for acceptance of broad responsibility for the bombing and payment of over $5 million in compensation to relatives of the victims.
