The United Nations Special Observer to the Lockerbie proceedings has, in an article for the forthcoming issue of the National Law School of India Review, accused the Scottish Judiciary and legal system of colluding with US intelligence to orchestrate a political show trial.

In a remarkable and lengthy critique of the flawed trial process and protracted subsequent proceedings, Kochler says the Scottish Court covened in the Netherlands which convicted Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad Al Megrahi, reached a pre-determined outcome, and accuses the UK authorities of an "apparent strategy" to cover up the "errors and malpractices" in the years since Megrahi's conviciton, that have kept him in jail on the basis of a discredited case.

"Altogether, the actions of the Prosecution and Defence often appeared co-ordinated, somehow following an external (non-judicial) strategy, and created the impression of a scripted procedure (whereby the “script” was followed at least to a certain extent)
and of a negotiated outcome," Kochler says.

"For an independent observer from outside the Scottish judicial establishment, there was simply no other way to explain the strange kind of “Solomonic judgment” which three Scottish law lords had unanimously reached at the end of the trial and five other law lords had confirmed by unanimously rejecting the (first) appeal.

"In the author’s evaluation, this judgment was more the child of political (i. e. diplomatic) convenience than of sound legal reasoning. How could one otherwise have explained that the first suspect was found “guilty” while the second suspect was found “not guilty” – both on the basis of an indictment the main argument of which was a rather complicated explanation, almost exclusively based on inferences, how the two Libyan suspects had acted together to ingest a bomb, hidden in a brown Samsonite suitcase (that was supposed to travel as unaccompanied luggage to Frankfurt and from there on to Heathrow), at Luqa airport in Malta?"

Kochler goes on to argue that the Government's inexplicable protection of information from a foreign power with the issue of Public Interest Immunity certificates is a measure that will make a fair trial under a new appeal "impossible".

"As we have stated earlier, the appointment of a security-vetted “Special Counsel” to represent Mr. Al-Megrahi in regard to the “secret” documents covered by the PII certificate will not alleviate the situation in any way, but will make the eventual new appeal proceedings even more appear like measures that are part of a political process, not a court of law. Such “extraordinary” measures indeed resemble an intelligence operation that serves the political interests of the state(s) involved in it, and are incompatible with the independence of the judiciary and the fairness of judicial proceedings as a supreme public interest."

Kochler's article concludes with a quote from his keynote speech at the Law Awards of Scotland 2008, which highlights the dilemma of the new appeal proceedings that are eventually to begin in  2009.

"Whether those in public office like it or not, the Lockerbie trial has become a test case for the criminal justice system of Scotland. At the same time, it has become an exemplary case on a global scale - its handling will demonstrate whether a domestic system of criminal justice can resist the dictates of international power politics or simply becomes dysfunctional as soon as "supreme state interests" interfere with the imperatives of justice."

Megrahi's next public hearing takes place at the High Court in Edinburgh tomorrow. 

Kochler's article can be read in full here.