The family of Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, the man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, has launched a fresh appeal to have his conviction overturned.
They also claim to have evidence that Mr al-Megrahi was pressured by the UK government to drop his earlier appeal in return for his early release in 2009.
He was controversially released on compassionate grounds eight years into his 27-year sentence, suffering from terminal cancer. He died three years later in Tripoli.
He was the only person found guilty in a 2001 trial of the bombing of Pan Am 103 which killed 270 people in December 1988, when it exploded in mid-air and crashed over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. His co-accused Lamin Fhima, was acquitted.
However, the former Libyan spy, who worked for the Libyan Airlines’ office in Valletta at the time of the bombing, kept protesting his innocence to his death.Following an extensive investigation, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in 2008 ruled that Mr al-Megrahi may have suffered a miscarriage of justice. The embarrassing details of that investigation, however, only came out in 2012, when the Scottish Herald published the previously undisclosed document.
The new appeal was submitted to the SCCRC by his family and a small group of his relatives.
Among the evidence uncovered during the SCCRC hearings was confirmation that the star witness in the case, Sliema shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who positively identified Mr al-Megrahi as the bomber, was paid millions of dollars by the US State Department at the request of Scottish prosecutors.
Mr Gauci and his brother Paul received at least $3 million for their part in securing Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction.
The whole Lockerbie body of evidence has been severely questioned over the years, supporting the idea that Mr al-Megrahi may in fact have been innocent.
Malta has a stake in the process because even though successive governments have consistently rejected the idea that Malta played any part in the tragedy, the official version accepted at the 2001 trial is premised on the idea that the bomb that destroyed the plane left from Malta.
Foreign Affairs Minister George Vella has said he believes Mr al-Megrahi to be innocent.