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American Morning

Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi To File Appeal at The Hague

Aired January 23, 2002 - 08:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: As we have been telling you this morning, the United States and Libya could be close to a deal that would remove Libya from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism.

"USA Today" has the story. They report, according to a senior U.S. official, Libya would be required to pay as much as $6 billion in reparations for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

The deal would not come before the appeal process has concluded for a Libyan who was given a life sentence for his role in the bombing of that airplane. The Libyan, jailed last year, is filing his appeal today. That will happen in The Netherlands.

CNN's Jim Bittermann is standing by at The Hague with more -- good morning, Jim.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jack. That appeal just got under way this morning, a couple of hours ago. The judges right now are on a lunch break, and they're just about to come back and begin their afternoon session here at Camp Zeist in Holland.

But we did get a pretty good idea this morning, as the defense lawyer for Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi began the arguments about how he is going to approach this appeal. Basically, it looks like he is going to attack on two grounds. First, he's going to try to poke holes in one of the key witnesses to this trial, a shopkeeper in Malta, who only vaguely testified that he identified Mr. Al-Megrahi as the person to whom he had sold some clothes. Those clothes were later found to have been wrapped the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103.

And the other tactic that the defense apparently is going to use is to try to poke holes in the scenario that the prosecutor have used about how the bomb got on board that Pan Am flight. The prosecution has alleged all the way along that Al-Megrahi put the bomb on in Malta, where he was a Libyan intelligence agent, and put the bomb on in Malta on a flight that went to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt, it went to Heathrow, and went as interline baggage on board Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland.

However, there is new testimony that may come out in this trial that the defense may bring up, and that is there is a baggage handler at Heathrow who says there was a breach of security at the Heathrow Airport which, in fact, could have allowed someone to put the bomb on at Heathrow. It's a kind of a scenario that seems a little dubious at this point, but that appears to be what the defense is going to try.

In any case, the defense has to prove there has been some miscarriage of justice in the first go around in this trial in order to be successful in the appeal -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: Is there any sense yet, Jim, of how long this appeals process might take?

BITTERMANN: Well, about three to six weeks is what they're saying. It really depends on how long the judges will let the appeal process go on, and how seriously they're going to take these two arguments that the defense are going to be bringing up -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: All right, Jim -- appreciate it. Jim Bittermann live at The Hague.

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