The British government has been resisting renewed demands for it to agree to a trial of the two Libyan suspects in a neutral country. The pressure came from relatives of the British Lockerbie victims and, at the Commonwealth summit in October, from President Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

Libya refuses to hand over the accused, arguing that they wouldn't get a fair trial either in Scotland or the United States, in particular because British or American juries would be prejudiced against them. To counter the pressure, Britain invited the UN, the Arab League and the OAU to send investigators to Scotland.

Only the UN took up the offer: the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, appointed two legal experts, one from Zimbabwe, the former Zimbabwe Chief Justice, Enoch Dumbutshena, and one from the Netherlands, Professor Henry Schermers of Leiden University. Their report concludes that the Libyan accused would receive a fair trial under the Scottish judicial system; it says their rights would be protected according to international standards, in the presence of UN and other international observers.

The two experts also say that a trial by jury would not prejudice the accused's rights, though they add that if the accused could show that it would, the British authorities should consider dispensing with the jury. Unsurprisingly, the Foreign Office in London welcomed the UN report: it said the findings had fully confirmed what it had said all along, that a trial in Scotland would be fair.