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Media urged to back fresh Lockerbie inquiry

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 12, 2010 | 2 min read

Justice for Megrahi, a campaign group which fought (successfully) to have Abdelbaset Ali Mohmend Al Megrahi released from prison, is now spearheading an international coalition inviting the press to back a petition calling for an inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing.

As exclusively revealed by The Drum's sister title, The Firm, the statement was distributed directly to the editors in chief of the Financial Times, the Herald, Guardian, Observer, The Times, Telegraph, Independent, Irish Times and The Scotsman and their respective Sunday sister titles, in addition to the Times of Malta.

Timed to coincide with renewed interest in the case both at home and abroad following Al-Megrahi’s compassionate release, which has seen the terminal cancer sufferer outlive his projected life expectancy by a considerable margin, the group hopes to up the political heat on governments either side of the Atlantic.

Signatories, who thus far include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr Jim Swire and Tam Dalyell, are calling for the “travesty of justice” which led to Al Megrahi’s conviction for planting an improvised explosive device within Pan Am 103 to be looked at anew.

This, campaigners hope, will redeem the image of the Scottish justice system which they say is “regarded internationally as an embarrassment… demonstrably malleable by political hands.”

It is hoped that consensual outrage in the press will be sufficient to tip First Minister Alex Salmond into setting up such an inquiry in Scotland after having already endorsed the idea in principle.

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