History:
Justice for Megrahi was founded in November 2008 following the judicial hearing which set out the arrangements for Mr al-Megrahi’s second appeal.
The appeal had been referred back to the Court of Appeal on a total of six grounds (largely concerned with the quality of evidence provided by the Crown’s star witness at Kamp van Zeist, Maltese shopkeeper Mr Tony Gauci) by Scotland's expert and independent legal authority, which has responsibility for referring cases to the Court of Appeal: the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The initial aim of JFM was to campaign, by means of a public petition to be submitted to Scottish Government ministers, for the compassionate release of Mr al-Megrahi in light of his terminal medical condition.
In September 2009, following the prisoners release, JFM began its campaign to have the 2001 verdict overturned via a comprehensive independent inquiry, or other judicial means, into the Lockerbie case. JFM contends that the reputation of Scotland's justice system has suffered a severe blow because of the Zeist verdict and that only through testing the validity of the verdict can this reputation be redeemed.
On 8th October 2010 we petitioned the Scottish Parliament to request the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into all those matters pertaining to the downing of Pan Am flight 103 at Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 as lie within the jurisdiction of Scotland, and those pertaining to the Scottish criminal conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi at Kamp van Zeist in January 2001.
On 15th February 2011, the ‘Justice for Megrahi Committee’ (JFM) updated the Public Petitions Committee (PPC) on recent developments that they believed were relevant to their petition. They believed that they had the potential to have a profound effect these matters Full details of this submission can be found at: lockerbiecase.blogspot.com
At their meeting of 1st of March 2011, the PPC voted to maintain the status of petition 1370 as open and carry it over to the new PPC in its ‘Legacy Paper’ inviting the new committee to give further consideration to the petition. The Justice Committee is now deciding on their action in relation to the petition.