The High Court in Edinburgh has today accepted <name>Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi's</name> request to drop his second appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing. <name>Al-Megrahi</name> was found guilty of planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103, which detonated as the aircraft flew over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 killing all 259 people on board and eleven more on the ground.

<name>Megrahi</name> has always protested his innocence. Although his appeal was dismissed in 2002, a review found evidence of a possible miscarriage of justice and granted <name>Megrahi</name> a second appeal. He is terminally ill with prostate cancer and may soon be released on compassionate grounds. Today's hearing was attended by the Reverend <name>John Mosey</name>, whose daughter was killed and who believes in <name>Megrahi's</name> innocence.

The conviction remains controversial, with the majority of victims' families in the UK feeling <name>Megrahi</name> is innocent while those in the US believe him to be guilty according to the Daily Telegraph. Doctor <name>Jim Swire</name>, a member of UK Families Flight 103, has threatened to sue the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service over what he feels is a deliberate blocking of justice. Meanwhile, in an earlier interview with Wikinews on the twentieth anniversary of the bombing last year, the then-head of the US group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, <name>Kara Weipz</name>, told Wikinews that "There is no difference between the truth as we see it and the official version of events. The facts are the facts, Mr. <name>Megrahi</name> is guilty."

Wikinews has obtained a statement from Mrs. <name>Weipz's</name> replacement <name>Frank Duggan</name>. In it <name>Duggan</name> maintains that <name>Megrahi</name> should die behind bars in Scotland, casts doubt on the likelihood of a transfer to Libya and attacks the Scottish media's coverage of the case. Dr. <name>Swire</name> has also been contacted with a request to comment.