Thomas Antenten, a corrections spokesman, said that once the principal made the decision to refer the case, officials had to investigate.

Peggy Roberts, a spokeswoman for Philip Morris, declined to comment yesterday on the commission's decision to refer the case to the Albany County district attorney.

A spokesperson for the prosecutor's office said that the decision to refer the case back to the appeal court was procedural, and that they were confident that the verdict would be upheld.

This seems to have largely satisfied the groups who raised the complaints, although the case was then referred to a state court, downgraded from the initial decision to refer the case to a federal court.

In these cases, aides said, she learned of new evidence of the sort that she had earlier said would cause her to reconsider her past decisions to refer the cases to an outside prosecutor.

On 28 June 2007 the SCCRC announced its decision to refer the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal for Megrahi's second appeal against conviction, having concluded:

LEAD: Because of an editing error, an article on April 13 about a West German court's decision to refer the case of Mohammed Hamadei to a juvenile court misstated the reason.

Since the release of Mr. McKay's report last week, Mr. Meese has made several critical comments, but he has not previously assailed the decision to refer the case to a special prosecutor.