A LAWYER mounting a posthumous appeal for the only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has said he is not surprised that the security services were ordered to spy on British victims’ relatives who also believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was innocent.

Aamer Anwar was speaking after it was reported yesterday that relatives’ communications were repeatedly bugged after secret government documents suggested they needed “careful watching” following the atrocity on December 21, 1988.

The documents, seen by The Times newspaper, revealed that then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was warned the families – including Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the disaster and Rev John Mosey, whose teenage daughter, Helga, also died – were becoming increasingly organised. It was suggested to Thatcher that they be put under observation.

Anwar said nearly 30 years after the bombing, in which 270 people died, the truth remained elusive.

He said: “The case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

“A reversal of the verdict would have meant that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom would stand exposed as having lived a monumental lie for 30 years and having imprisoned a man they knew to be innocent.

“It comes as no surprise that the security services were instructed to spy on those British relatives who to date have never given up in their pursuit of the truth.”

Anwar said it was shocking that the British state still refused to release documents, while destroying some as legal proceedings continued: “My clients see this as an attempt to pervert the course of justice ... I have written to the Lord Advocate seeking full disclosure of all relevant material found by the police.

“The reputation of the Scottish criminal justice system has suffered badly both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the justifiability of the conviction of Mr al-Megrahi.”

Writing on the Friends of Justice for Megrahi Facebook page, Robert Black QC, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh, said he and Swire suspected their phones were being tapped.

He said: “In telephone conversations Dr Swire and I would sometimes deliberately include misleading information and on other occasions, if clicks and hissing made the apparent monitoring more than usually obvious, Dr Swire would say ‘Hi, guys’.”

The revelations came as a new book – the Lockerbie Disaster: 30 years of Deceit, by Robert John Simons – called for a full public inquiry into the case.

Simons said it should have power to subpoena witnesses under oath and any documents relating to Lockerbie, to establish the facts.