Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadafy said today the world had been misled over the Libyan role in the Lockerbie airliner bombing.
He repeated his denials that the Libyan state, or Libyan secret agent Abdel Basset alMegrahi who was convicted last week of the 1988 bombing, bore any guilt for the attack which killed 270 people over the Scottish town.
Col Gadafy, meeting Megrahi's acquitted co-accused on his homecoming on Thursday, had announced he would produce evidence showing Megrahi's innocence today.
In the early passages of a lengthy speech to journalists in Tripoli he quoted media commentators and analysts who have expressed scepticism over the results of the Lockerbie trial, held under Scottish law in the Netherlands.
"Libya was innocent of Lockerbie", he said.
"But Libya had to be accused, otherwise America and Britain would be embarrassed in front of the whole world and then would face huge compensation bills from the Libyan people", he added, in a reference to the 1986 Anglo-American bombing raid on Libya which killed several people, including Gadafy's daughter.
US investigators had manipulated the evidence put before the Lockerbie trial, Col Gadafy said. Megrahi's co-accused Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima had been deliberately acquitted of the Lockerbie bombing as part of a political scheme.
"Fahima's acquittal would give some credibility to the Western Christian justice system", the Libyan leader explained.
Col Gadafy poured scorn on the verdict against Megrahi, but he made no immediate announcement of fresh evidence.
The United States and Britain insist Libya must admit some responsibility for the bombing and pay compensation to relatives of victims before sanctions against Tripoli can be fully lifted.
Earlier today Professor Robert Black who helped set up the Lockerbie trial claimed the real bombers of Pan Am flight 103 were Syrian-based terrorists.
The Scottish law professor said: "It was only after Libya agreed to the trial that I was able to take a hard look at the evidence available.
"I formed the view then that the case against the Libyans was a weak one. And I still think so today."
Reuters/PA