A BBC report cast fresh doubt on the conviction of a Libyan man convicted of the December 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, southwest Scotland, as it queried the reliability of a key witness.
BBC Newsnight Scotland reported late on Thursday that there were concerns about the evidence of prosecution witness Alan Feraday, who testified during the trial of former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.
Three men who the forensic scientist also gave evidence against have since had their convictions quashed, it said.
Solicitor Eddie McKechnie, who represented Megrahi at the Lockerbie trial in 2001, told Newsnight that it provoked "serious issues" about the conviction.
"It is a factor that I take very seriously into account on behalf of Mr. Megrahi," he said.
"One would have thought that when a professional and a government forensic expert is impugned in a number of cases ... then serious issues arise," he said.
The BBC program said it understood that papers about Feraday's evidence had been sent to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is investigating Megrahi's conviction.
Megrahi is serving a minimum 27-year prison term for his part in the downing of New York-bound Pam American Flight 103 that killed 270 people.
In 2001, judges at a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands found him guilty of murder. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was cleared.
An appeal made later by Megrahi was refused.
During the trial, Feraday, who is now said to be retired, told the judges that he was in no doubt that a circuit board fragment found after the disaster was part of the detonator.
Dr. Jim Swire, who led a campaign for justice after losing his daughter Flora in the bombing, told the BBC that the latest revelation "undermines one's confidence" in Megrahi's life sentence.
"I'm personally not satisfied of Mr. Megrahi's guilt. I emerged [from the trial] riddled with doubts. This will of course augment them," Swire said.
"If one finds that three cases have been overturned, it rather undermines one's confidence," he said.
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