Justice is still awaited

Baker's sanctimonious statement that he will be thinking of the 270 victims rather than Megrahi was intended to counter any sympathy for a man who probably has only weeks to live.

But it is also meant to buttress the idea of Megrahi as guilty of the Lockerbie bombing rather than the victim of a fit-up by US intelligence agents.

People can mourn the 270 innocent victims without having to accept the controversial decision of three Scottish judges at a court in the Netherlands in January 2001.

Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora perished in the terrorist outrage, remains convinced of Megrahi's innocence.

He welcomes the announcement that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has been given permission to release details of the Lockerbie bombing case.

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was also killed, has expressed her frustration that the issue remains unresolved and may continue so if Megrahi dies before there is full consideration of the case.

Having a verdict that commands little respect is not only a tragedy for Megrahi, who has spent the past nine years separated from his family on the basis of a politically motivated show trial.

It is also a tragedy for the families of the 270 victims, who cannot draw a definitive line under their loss because of their well-founded suspicion that those behind the bombing have not faced retribution for their crime while an innocent man has been incarcerated as a political hostage to Libya's improved relations with the US and Britain.

The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 was almost certainly carried out by the PFLP-GC Palestinian splinter group at the behest of its Iranian and Syrian allies, following the shooting down of an Iranian civilian passenger aircraft by the USS Vincennes over the Strait of Hormuz in 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew.

Libya only entered the frame as a suspect when US President George Bush needed Syria and Iran on board for the 1991 war against Iraq.

The case against Megrahi and his co-accused Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah was flimsy in the extreme and, indeed, Fhimah was acquitted.

The court ignored German police reports that PFLP-GC groups possessed several explosive devices concealed in radio cassette players which were similar to the Lockerbie bomb.

It accepted that the bomb had been loaded in Malta and transferred undetected to Heathrow, discounting reports that the Pan Am baggage area at Heathrow had been broken into the night before the Pan Am flight arrived.

Most damningly, the prosecution case relied heavily on the preposterous witness Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who claimed to remember selling clothing to Megrahi that was later wrapped round the bomb.

The witness, who was revealed as a CIA agent, was said to have been paid $4 million as a reward for his testimony. He has since settled in Australia.

Megrahi was persuaded to drop his second appeal against conviction in favour of release on compassionate grounds, but the case must be re-examined to ensure posthumous justice for Megrahi, the 270 murder victims and their families.