(81) The Lockerbie trial
opened at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands on 3 May 2000. The two accused, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering the 270 persons killed in the bombing of PanAm flight 101 on 22 December 1988. They also submitted a special defence naming other individuals and organisations as responsible for the crime, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front. A number of television companies sought to compel live television coverage of the trial by way of a petition to the nobile officium of the Court of Session, but this was unsuccessful, although television cameras are transmitting restricted coverage to four remote sites in Dumfries, London, New York and Washington DC for the benefit of the immediate family members of the victims of the disaster (BBC Petitioners 2000 SLT 845, 860). Details of the trial can be followed on two websites: one maintained at the Glasgow Law School, http://www.law.gla.ac.uk/lockerbie, the other at http://www.thelockerbietrial.com/. <