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The Commission also considers that the Crown's failure to disclose the information about the reward money to be paid to Mr Gauci under a scheme administered by the US Department of State bolsters its conclusion that Mr Megrahi was denied a fair trial.

Ground 5: Timer Fragment PT/35(b)

The applicants' submissions under this overall ground were three-fold and were as follows:

  • (1) The Crown failed to disclose to the defence information about the difference in metallurgy between the timer fragment PT/35(b), recovered during the ground search, and the control circuit boards (fragment PT/35(b) being, the trial court concluded, part of the MEBO-produced MST-13 timer used to trigger the bomb);
  • (2) There is fresh evidence about the difference in metallurgy between PT/35(b) and the control circuit boards which casts serious doubt on the trial court's conclusion that PT/35(b) was part of the MEBO-produced MST-13 timer; and
  • (3) If there has not been a miscarriage of justice by reason of undisclosed information or fresh evidence relating to the metallurgy issue, the defence team's decision not to investigate it amounted to a failure to present Mr Megrahi's defence. The Commission decided that the Crown did not fail to disclose the information in question to the defence. It decided also that the applicants have not provided a reasonable explanation as to why the fresh evidence concerning the metallurgy issue was not led at the trial.

In other words, it did not believe that submissions (1) and (2) are arguable.

As regards submission (3), the conduct of an accused's defence may be said to amount to a miscarriage of justice only where it has deprived him of a fair trial; a fair trial is denied to an accused where his defence was not presented to the court because counsel either disregarded his instructions or conducted the defence in a way in which no competent counsel could reasonably have conducted it.

The Commission decided that the decision by the defence team to proceed without investigating the metallurgy issue did not mean that Mr Megrahi's defence was not presented to the court.

In any event, the Commission was not persuaded that the evidence obtained post-trial about the metallurgy of the control circuit boards called into question the trial court's conclusion that PT/35(b) was part of the MEBO-produced MST-13 timer used to trigger the bomb.

Ground 6: The Suitcase Ingestion

The submissions in this regard arose from a theory derived from the work of the organisation Justice for Megrahi'.

The issue was covered extensively in the report that 'Operation Sandwood produced (Operation Sandwood being the investigation that Police Scotland initiated in 2014 following allegations that Justice for Megrahi made about criminality on the

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