Pan Am flight Libyans may never stand trial

Libyans indicted in 1991 for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie will never stand trial in Scotland or the United States, according to Scottish and Libyan lawyers. In stark terms clearly aiming to end the international legal stalemate that has existed since the possibility of the men's voluntary extradition first emerged in 1993, Dr Ibrahim Legwell and Alistair Duff both told a special session of the seminar of the International Bar Association that unless plans for the men to be tried in a neutral country - under Scots law and headed by a Scots judge - were resurrected the probability existed that the Libyans would never stand trial.

The seminar was also addressed by Dr Jim Swire, representing the families of British victims, who said: "Five years without progress convinces us that it is time to compromise." British and US authorities appear not to have moved from the belief that the men should be brought to justice in either of the two countries. James Cusick