A lawyer who is planning to launch an appeal on behalf of the serial killer Harold Shipman is being asked to prove his legal qualifications, it emerged yesterday.

Giovanni di Stefano, who has represented the millionaire Nicholas van Hoogstraten and the former president of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic, is working for Shipman, the 57-year-old former GP who was convicted three years ago of murdering 15 patients. But the Law Society said it would be asking Mr Di Stefano, based in London, to prove his qualifications.

A Law Society spokesman said yesterday: "We have requested that under article 12 of the European Countries (Services of Lawyers) Order 1978, Mr Di Stefano verifies his status as a EU lawyer. He has not yet done so." Under article 12 Mr Di Stefano is not entitled to provide any legal services in Britain, he said.

According to Mr Di Ste fano, Shipman's appeal is to be made on the grounds that defence lawyers were deprived of the right to their own post-mortem examinations on 11 victims. He will also ask why the judge instructed the jury to assume that the findings of a post-mortem examination on one victim, who died of a morphine overdose, could be applied to all the victims.

An inquiry begun two years ago continues. An interim report found Shipman killed 215 patients and could have been involved in the deaths of a further 45.