JUDGES rejected a bid yesterday by families of the Lockerbie bombing victims to challenge the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi — the only man jailed for the atrocity.

Two-hundred and seventy people were killed when a bomb exploded on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, on December 21 1988.

Mr Megrahi was the only person convicted over the atrocity but concerns have long existed over the verdict.

A group of British relatives had argued that they had a “legitimate interest” in seeking to get Mr Megrahi’s case back before a court for a full appeal.

They believe the Libyan, who died protesting his innocence in his home country in 2012 having been freed on compassionate grounds, was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and want his conviction overturned.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is once again looking at Mr Megrahi’s conviction, asked the Appeal Court in Edinburgh for guidance on whether the victims’ families can take forward an appeal.

Previous court decisions have meant that only the executor of a dead person’s estate or their next of kin could proceed with such a posthumous application.

The Lord Justice Clerk Lord Carloway said at the Appeal Court hearing that the law was “not designed to give relatives of victims a right to proceed in an appeal for their own or the public interest.”

Aamer Anwar, solicitor for the Megrahi family and 26 British relatives of Lockerbie victims, said the fight would continue.

Serious doubts remain over the testimony of a key witness at the 1991 trial, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose

evidence was that items found in the wreckage had been purchased in his shop by a man he claimed was Mr Megrahi.

It subsequently emerged that Mr Gauci had been paid a substantial sum of money by the CIA for his testimony, which was riddled with inaccuracies.

At the time UN observer to the trial Dr Hans Kochler described it as “a spectacular miscarriage of justice.”