The altogether unexpected verdict in the 15-month long trial of two Libyans for a terrorist act -- blowing up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland - has gone unremarked in the western press. But in fact the verdict can only be seen as a rejection of the prosecution case, leaving many to speculate on the possibility that other interests are at stake. PNS editor Franz Schurmann, professor emeritus of history and sociology at UC-Berkeley, has traveled widely in the Middle East and reads the Arab- and Farsi-language press.

Western media have greeted the Lockerbie trial verdict with remarkable silence -- a verdict that would have produced big headlines shouting "Arab convicted for terrorist downing of PanAm plane" 10 years ago.

The incident was big news in the days after December 21, 1988 when a London-New York Pan Am flight exploded over the village of Lockerbie, Scotland killing some 270 people, including ten villagers. Western media immediately blamed Arab terrorists. Washington and London got the UN to vote severe sanctions on Libya, and in the early 1990s the U.S. and British governments identified two Libyan Arabs by name and demanded their extradition.

In April 1999 Libyan leader Col. Mu'amar Qadhafi agreed to turn over the Libyans provided they were tried in the Netherlands under Scots law. The trial began on May 3, 2000 and got so little coverage in the U.S. media that by the time it ended on January 31, 2001 most Americans had no idea what the "Lockerbie trial" was about.

But in the Arab world, the verdict met massive disbelief. As analyst George Raji wrote in Egypt's prestigious "Al-Ahram" newspaper, "informed international opinion believes the US and the UK would rather maintain the sanctions against Libya than reveal the truth about Lockerbie."

The verdict came as a big surprise to just about everyone in the courtroom as well. One Libyan, Abdul Basit al-Meqrahi, was found guilty and immediately sentenced to life imprisonment. The other, Al-Ameen Khaleefa Feheemeh, was found innocent, released and hours later arrived in Tripoli to be embraced by Col. Qadhafi.

This surprised observers because that the prosecution had described the two defendants as a working team. Feheemeh told reporters that on the night before the verdict he and Meqrahi packed their bags convinced that they would walk out of the courtroom together.

Meqrahi was a Libyan intelligence operative and Feheemeh a station manager in the Malta airport. Though a pariah in the international community, Libya had long been helping Malta's air service. When Malta gained independence in 1964 after 160 years as a British colony, it swung to the left and towards Libya only some 200 miles to the south. Though Maltese are Roman Catholic, they speak an Arabic dialect.

According to the prosecutors the two defendants obtained a bomb with a timer -- parts of which were found in the plane's wreckage -- in Germany. Then, a few days before the crash, the two allegedly wrapped the bomb in some clothes purchased at Mary's House, a boutique in Valetta, Malta's capital, and put it into a piece of Samsonite luggage.

Pieces of clothing from Mary's House were found in the wreckage along with bomb fragments. The prosecutors alleged that Meqrahi and Feheemeh got put the luggage, tagged for New York, aboard a Malta Air flight to Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, the luggage was transferred to the doomed PanAm plane without further examination.

It stopped at London's Heathrow Airport on schedule, but its departure was delayed for an hour. Without that delay, the plane would have crashed over the Atlantic.

Early witnesses were interrogated about the bomb and the timer, but as the prosecution began to present the heart of its case, many witnesses refused to testify. One Libyan witness who did testify (behind a screen with an altered voice -- he had been under FBI protection even before the crash) contradicted himself so much that his long awaited testimony proved disappointing.

When the prosecution completed its case, the defense astounded all observers by not calling a single witness. It seemed clear they thought the two would be cleared. The prosecution followed with an equally puzzling action, informing the judges they would drop all charges except premeditated murder. That seemed to make a guilty verdict even less likely.

Arabic newspapers noted "Libya officially respects the verdict of the Court," and suggested sanctions should be lifted. But London maintained the verdict meant Libya must pay $700 million to compensate relatives of those who died.

Qadhafi vehemently rejected this interpretation. According to Al Ahram's George Raji, Asmat Abdul-Majeed, head of the Arab League and an Egyptian, went to New York to talk with UN General Secretary Kofi Anan about the verdict and ask if he knew of any secret understandings.

But ordinary Libyans including Feheemeh are convinced that Al- Meqrahi will be released well before the mandatory 20 years in prison.