The Crown Office have released a statement criticising the BBC after it broadcast an investigation on Newsnight across England and Wales reporting that the UN's European consultant on explosives, John Wyatt, found that the circuit board “evidence” relied upon in the discredited Crown case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi could not have survived a semtex explosion as claimed in the trial.

The report was scheduled to be broadcast on Newsnight Scotland on 7 January, and can be viewed here.

The Crown statement repeats the fact that Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie atrocity, but omits the later development that the conviction was thereafter under appeal before being dropped to facilitate Megrahi's return to Libya, following the finding of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission that a miscarriage of justice may have occured.

The statement also highlighted what it described as “errors” in the BBC report and lists details regarding a series of test explosions undertaken as part of the Lockerbie proceedings. However the statement does not address Wyatt’s central claim about the ability of a fragment of circuit board to survive a semtex explosion.

“Crown Office has not seen any report of Dr Wyatt s findings, nor were we approached by the BBC for any comment,” the statement said.

“Had the BBC asked the Crown for a comment, it would have been possible to identify the errors in the report, including the inaccurate description of the piece of clothing as containing a label which said Made in Malta.

“It was reported in the programme that tests carried out by Dr Wyatt suggest that the fragment was unlikely to have survived the mid-air explosion and that the radio used in his tests totally disintegrated and went into tiny, tiny bits.

"In fact, extensive explosives tests were carried out in the United States in 1989, some time before the fragment PT35 was extracted by the forensic experts, as part of the Lockerbie investigation.

“After a number of test explosions a detailed search was made and circuit board fragments, radio cassette casing and parts, fragments of instruction manual, the suitcase and clothing were all recovered in a condition which was consistent with the debris recovered in relation to the Lockerbie disaster.”

In 2007, Ulrich Lumpert of timer company MEBO released an affidavit stating he had manufactured the circuit board “evidence” relied upon by the Crown at the Zeist trial.

In 2009 Professor Robert Black QC and UN appointed international observer Hans Kochler backed a campaign initiated by the Lockerbie Justice Group which challenged the Lord Advocate to openly demonstrate that Pan Am 103 could have been brought down by a semtex bomb, under controlled laboratory conditions.

The group stated that fabric and circuit board fragments cannot survive a semtex explosion, and accordingly the entire Crown case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi would fall. The BBC report concluded with the same observation. The Lord Advocate did not engage with the challenge.

The Crown Office statement can be read in full below. 

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On 6 January 2010, the BBC s Newsnight reported claims regarding the timer fragment (PT 35), which formed part of the case against the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

The report included an interview with a consultant, Dr John Wyatt, who suggested that it was unlikely that the timer fragment survived the mid-air explosion over Lockerbie.

The trial court accepted evidence that the PT 35 fragment was part of the timer which had detonated the explosion on Pan Am Flight 103.

A Crown Office spokesperson said:

"The only appropriate forum for the determination of guilt or innocence is the criminal court. Mr Megrahi was convicted unanimously by three senior judges following trial and his conviction was upheld unanimously by five judges, in an Appeal Court presided over by the Lord Justice General, Scotland s most senior judge. Mr Megrahi remains convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in UK history.

Dr John Wyatt has never examined the timer fragment (PT 35) or the piece of clothing from which it was extracted by forensic experts, later identified as part of a shirt sold to a Libyan man in Malta two weeks before the bombing. Crown Office has not seen any report of Dr Wyatt s findings, nor were we approached by the BBC for any comment. Had the BBC asked the Crown for a comment, it would have been possible to identify the errors in the report, including the inaccurate description of the piece of clothing as containing a label which said Made in Malta .

The steps taken by the police to identify the origin of the fragment were described in evidence to the trial court at Camp Zeist and conclusive forensic evidence proved that the fragment was part of the timer in the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), a Toshiba radio cassette recorder, at the time of the explosion which destroyed Pan Am 103.

It was reported in the programme that tests carried out by Dr Wyatt suggest that the fragment was unlikely to have survived the mid-air explosion and that the radio used in his tests totally disintegrated and went into tiny, tiny bits .

In fact, extensive explosives tests were carried out in the United States in 1989, some time before the fragment PT35 was extracted by the forensic experts, as part of the Lockerbie investigation. The purpose of these tests was:

o to estimate the amount and location of the explosives used on PA103;

o to establish the extent of damage to the improvised explosive device ( IED ), the adjacent suitcases and their contents; and

o to ascertain what parts of the IED and its contents it was possible to recover and identify.

After a number of test explosions a detailed search was made and circuit board fragments, radio cassette casing and parts, fragments of instruction manual, the suitcase and clothing were all recovered in a condition which was consistent with the debris recovered in relation to the Lockerbie disaster.

The forensic evidence placed before the court included:

*Evidence about the appearance of the fragment;

*The fact that when it was recovered, it was embedded within a fragment of a blast damaged grey Slalom brand shirt, which had been found in Newcastleton, Roxburghshire on 13 January 1989 and which in the opinion of the scientists, had been packed within the suitcase housing the IED (the primary suitcase ); This piece of shirt did not, contrary to the claims made in the BBC programme, contain a label saying Made in Malta .

*Also embedded within that same clothing fragment were pieces of a Toshiba RT-SF 16 radio cassette recorder owner s manual. Separately, another fragment of the owner s manual was found on 22 December 1988 in Morpeth, Northumberland;

*The fragments of the owner's manual recovered from the grey Slalom shirt by the forensic scientists were found to have come from parts of the same page of the same manual, close to one another".