Scottish prosecutors seek libyan help on lockerbie

Scotland’s Crown Office, which is responsible for criminal prosecutions, asked the new Libyan government for help in the Lockerbie investigation, an unidentified spokeswoman said in an e-mailed statement today.

The office asked the National Transitional Council to provide any documentary evidence and witnesses needed to charge others who acted with Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.

“The trial court accepted that Megrahi acted in furtherance of the Libyan intelligence services in an act of state-sponsored terrorism and did not act alone,” the office said. “The Crown will continue to pursue lines of enquiry that become available.”

Lockerbie remained an open enquiry over who else was involved with Al-Megrahi in the murder of 270 people, the Crown Office said. It declined to comment further on the details of the request as the investigation was still continuing.

Al-Megrahi, the only person found guilty of the bombing, was convicted in 2001 and sent to prison for 27 years. He was released from prison in Scotland in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he had prostate cancer and was likely to die within a few months. Al-Megrahi returned to Libya, where he is still living.