Investigations and satire magazine Private Eye has accused the Government of orchestrating a deliberate cover up over the Pan Am 103 case and investigation, following publication of further information which discredits the Crown's key forensic evidence against Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.

Material published in a new book claims that the results of forensic tests carried out by British government scientists were kept from the trial and defence team.

"This new material, coupled with doubts over Gauci’s identification evidence, destroy the two main pillars of Megrahi’s conviction," the magazine says in its current edition.

"It also confirms the fears of observers who sat through the original trial in the Netherlands. One of those was Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the Atrocity. He is convinced that a grave injustice has allowed the real killers to go free and is now at the forefront of demands for a public inquiry.

"Dr Swire told the Eye that it was [Prime Minister David] Cameron’s attempt to dismiss the book without reading it that was the “insult” to families, who are now confronted by what appears to be a deliberate cover-up. The question is, how high does the cover-up go?"

The Editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop, is a co-signatory to a petition submitted to the United Nations calling for an international inquiry into the affair.