Defence lawyers said that poor translation meant the two defendants did not fully understand the proceedings at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands.
Interpretation has to be practical and effective.
The interpretation here seems to have been far from that. Mr Keen said the men, who are accused of causing the deaths of 270 people when a Pan Am jet exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, were entitled to a verbatim translation. If the issue cannot be resolved by the court in the Netherlands, it could be referred under the European Convention for Human Rights to the High Court in Edinburgh, and then to the judicial committee of Britain's Privy Council, Mr Bonnington said. On Thursday, the court heard evidence from two members of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The men, their identities disguised, described how they had found electronic timers similar to that allegedly used in the Lockerbie bombing on two men detained in Senegal 10 months before the Lockerbie bombing.