Lockerbie bomber maintains innocence

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The lawyer for convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi said his client maintained his innocence.

Megrahi, 48, faces life imprisonment after he was found guilty on Wednesday. Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah was found not guilty.

Megrahi's lawyer Bill Taylor has up to two weeks to appeal against the verdict, which would be heard before five Scottish judges. An appeal could be heard by a five-member tribunal at Camp Zeist, a former U.S. air base in The Netherlands.

"He maintains his innocence, so there is nothing I can say by way of mitigation," Taylor said.

He said that the sentence should start from April 5 1999 -- the time the two defendants arrived in Camp Zeist.

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The prosecution case in the Lockerbie trial rested on proving that Megrahi and Fhimah intended to destroy or damage Pan Am flight 103.

But as the trial reached its climax, Taylor highlighted errors in baggage security at Frankfurt airport to support his argument that others could have been the true bombers.

Clare Connelly from the University of Glasgow said from outside the court that the decision came as no surprise in spite of the case being based mainly on circumstantial evidence.

The prosecution team was headed by Lord Advocate Colin Boyd, assisted by Alastair Campbell and Alan Turnbull.

Boyd was appointed Lord Advocate, Scotland's top law officer, in March 2000 after the shock resignation of Lord Hardie, which led to reports that the prosecution's case was in trouble.

The mild-mannered Boyd, 47, previously held post of solicitor general, the number two Scottish law officer.

Prosecutors said Megrahi was a "high-ranking officer" in Libyan intelligence and had access to a timer of the kind used in the bombing -- made in Switzerland but sold only in Libya.

The defence team was headed by Kamal Maghur -- a practising lawyer since gaining his degree in Cairo, Egypt, in 1957.

He has been a judge on the Libyan appeals court and supreme court and has served as ambassador to the United Nations, Canada, France, China, among other countries.

Counsel for Megrahi, Taylor served as junior counsel for Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office and for the Department of Health and Social Security, and has specialised in criminal defence work since the 1980s.

Fellow defence lawyer Richard Keen said the prosecution case hanged on "inference upon inference, leading to another inference."

The defence had said a German cell of the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (FLAP-G) had the means and motive to attack the flight.

Lockerbie trial verdicts due
January 31, 2001
Lockerbie trial enters final stages
January 29, 2001
Reporter's Notebook: Justice unlikely to be swift in Lockerbie trial
January 20, 2001
Defense points to Palestinian group in closing arguments of Lockerbie bombing trial
January 11, 2001
Lockerbie judges reject acquittal plea
November 29, 2000
Libyan agent denies bomb link
November 16, 2000
Lockerbie case must be proved 'beyond reasonable doubt'
January 30, 2001

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