London - A Libyan man jailed for life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people died launched an appeal against his conviction Tuesday claiming that he suffered a "miscarriage of justice."Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 57, claims that his 2001 conviction by a special court in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands for the bombing of an American airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie was based on "wholly circumstantial evidence."

The bomb that destroyed PanAm Flight 103 from London to New York on December 21, 1988, killed 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground.

The Libyan, who has terminal prostate cancer, was not present at the proceedings in the Appeal Court in Edinburgh, Scotland, but followed them via a video link in prison, his legal representatives said.

"The appellant's position is that there has been a miscarriage of justice in this case," his lawyer, Maggie Scott, told a panel of Scotland's top five judges.

She argued that the guilty verdict against al-Megrahi depended on four "critical inferences" drawn at the Camp Zeist trial on which doubt had been cast in subsequent proceedings and investigations.

These were that al-Megrahi bought the clothing which was in the suitcase containing the bomb, that the purchase happened on December 7, 1988, that the buyer knew the purpose for which the clothing was bought, and that the suitcase containing the bomb entered the system at Luqa airport in Malta, said Scott.

Tuesday's second appeal was ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which found in 2007 that al-Megrahi's conviction "may be unsafe."

In October last year appeal court judges rejected al-Megrahi's plea to be released from jail on compassionate grounds. The new appeal proceedings are expected to last four weeks. (dpa)