The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is a "scapegoat", Britain's longest serving MP said on Thursday.

Father of the Commons, Tam Dalyell, is backing Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The Linlithgow MP held a two hour Barlinnie prison meeting with Megrahi and his lawyer, Eddie MacKechnie, on Tuesday, just hours ahead of the legal challenge.

"I give him total support," he told ePolitix.com "I back him to the hilt."

Dalyell believes Megrahi to be a victim of the West's "scapegoating of Libya".

"What I'm concerned about is truth and justice and I believe that Mr Megrahi is an innocent man facing the prospect of 19 years in Barlinnie - which is outrageous," he said.

The MP, who has long campaigned around the case, dismisses the argument that Libya's decision to pay compensation to the relatives of the 1988 terror attack's 270 victims is an admission of guilt.

"No, because they are desperate to get back into the international trading system, the compensation deal was done without prejudice to Mr Megrahi," he says.

Megrahi's lawyer, MacKechnie, will claim that his client did not receive a fair trial.

"I have caused an application to be launched with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg," he said.

"This document, which is substantial, is basically a complaint that Mr Megrahi did not receive a fair trial. The complaint is against the UK."My client's right to a fair trial was prejudiced by unfair publicity and public statements by officials here and abroad. This extended over years. His photo and that of his co-accused were circulated all over the world."

The lawyer is confident that Megrahi will be released if the appeal to European courts is successful.

"Tradition and procedure suggest that the UK government, confronted by a successful complaint against it, will take whatever steps might be thought appropriate to rectify the breach," said.

"That could, and in my view should, lead to his eventual release from prison."

Megrahi was jailed by a special session of a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands.

A team of barristers from England and Scotland, led by leading human rights lawyer Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC, will argue that the 50-year old Libyan is a victim of a "serious miscarriage of justice".A total of 259 people on board Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground died when the transatlantic jumbo jet was destroyed by a bomb as it flew over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.