(144)  Lockerbie: appeal to be televised

The Lord Justice General, Lord Cullen, has ruled that the appeal of Abdelbaset Almegrahi against his conviction in the Lockerbie trial (see No 96) can be televised by the BBC and streamed on the Internet (with a simultaneous translation into Arabic).  The appeal begins on 23 January 2002 and will, like the trial, take place in Kamp van Zeist in the Netherlands.  It is the first time that any Scottish appeal court proceedings will have been televised.  It is thought that the service will be of particular benefit to US relatives of victims of the bombing of PanAm 108 in 1988, who are reluctant to travel by air following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.