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Al-Megrahi "was released to prevent prosecutor's exposure" (Extra)
By DPA
Aug 20, 2009, 16:20 GMT

Amsterdam - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was released from jail in order to prevent public exposure of the Scottish prosecutor, a Dutch investigative reporter and expert on the aftermath of the 1988 terrorist attack alleged Thursday.

'If the appeal in al-Megrahi's trial had taken place, it would have shown major mistakes were made in the initial trial that cost more than 100 million pounds (116 million euros) in taxpayers' money,' investigative journalist Gideon Levy told the German Press Agency dpa on Thursday.

Levy spoke shortly after al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing of a Pan Am airliner which killed 270 people, was freed from a jail in Scotland on compassionate grounds.

The Libyan last week dropped an appeal against his sentence, a move which some believed influenced the Scottish decision to release him because he is terminally ill with cancer.

Levy, a Dutch television journalist, investigated the Lockerbie trial for more than three years.

His 2009 documentary Lockerbie Revisited showed how the only piece of evidence linking al-Megrahi to the Lockerbie attack - a small fragment of a chip that allegedly caused the bomb to explode - was transferred from Scotland to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US without knowledge of Lord Advocate Peter Fraser.

Fraser led the Scottish investigation into the terrorist attack.

'It cannot be ruled out someone tampered with this crucial piece of evidence,' Levy said, adding Al-Megrahi's 2001 conviction was entirely based on the controversial chip fragment.

The chip fragment was discovered in a man's shirt in one of the suitcases found at the site of the explosion.

Investigators traced the shirt to a store in Malta. The store owner later became the main witness who identified Al-Megrahi.

Levy, however, claims the store owner did not actually identify the Libyan. 'He only stated Al-Megrahi 'resembled' someone who visited his store,' the journalist said.

Levy's film was shown in the Scottish parliament in April and broadcast on several European channels.

Scottish lawmakers subsequently gave the documentary to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who has since visited al-Megrahi in jail several times.

Levy said al-Megrahi 'should never have been convicted on grounds of the available evidence' and that it was time the 'real suspects' of the bomb attack on the Pan Am airliner would be found and brought to trial.