Terminally ill Lockerbie bomber returns to Libya

SCOTLAND yesterday released a former Libyan agent jailed for life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans, because he is dying of cancer.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who has less than three months to live with terminal prostate cancer, was being returned to Libya on compassionate grounds, a decision strongly criticised by the United States, which had campaigned to keep him in prison.

“He is a dying man, he is terminally ill,” Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill told a news conference. “My decision is that he returns home to die.

“Some hurts can never heal, some scars can never fade. Those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive... However, Mr al- Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power.”

A Libyan government spokesman said Megrahi was being flown home with a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Television pictures showed him being driven out of the gates of Greenock prison, Inverclyde, in western Scotland, with a small crowd of locals booing as his convoy departed for the airport.

The Lockerbie bomber yesterday said he had “sympathy” for the families of those who died in the atrocity. A statement issued on behalf of Megrahi after he left prison said: “I am obviously very relieved to be leaving my prison cell at last and returning to Libya, my homeland.

“Many people, including the relatives of those who died in, and over, Lockerbie, are, I know, upset that my appeal has come to an end; that nothing more can be done about the circumstances surrounding the Lockerbie bombing.

“I share their frustration. I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out – until my diagnosis of cancer.

“To those victims’ relatives who can bear to hear me say this: they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered.

“To those who bear me ill will, I do not return that to you.”

The United States government, which opposed Megrahi’s early release, said it “deeply regrets” the decision: “As we have expressed repeatedly to officials of the government of the United Kingdom and to Scottish authorities, we continue to believe that Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland.”

Megrahi, 57, is the only person convicted for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in mid-air above the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

He lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, but a Scottish review of his case ruled in 2007 that there might have been a miscarriage of justice.

Relatives of many of the 189 American victims thought Megrahi should have served his full life sentence.

The families of many of the Britons killed in the bombing were never convinced by the strength of the evidence against him and thought he should be allowed to go home to die.

London-based Algerian lawyer Saad Djebbar, who has worked with Libya on the Lockerbie case, said the release had done Britain a “great favour” in diplomatic and economic terms.

“This will enhance relations... Britain and Scotland will grow in the eyes of the Arab states,” he told the BBC. “I assure you it will help British interests.”

Former British ambassador to Libya, Oliver Miles played down the benefits to Britain and said the release was only one part of a long process of improving relations. “It removes an irritant, but it wasn’t a great irritant,” he said. “I don’t think it is going to give us lots of lovely new business.”

Meanwhile, Kara Weipz from New Jersey, whose brother Richard Monetti, 20, was killed in the disaster, said: “I don’t understand how the Scots can show compassion. It’s an utter insult and utterly disgusting... It’s horrible. I don’t show compassion for someone who showed no remorse.”

Briton Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed, welcomed the Libyan’s release, saying many questions remained about the bomb in the cargo hold.

“I think he should be able to go straight home to his family and spend his last days there,” Swire told the BBC. “I don’t believe for a moment this man was involved in the way he was found to be involved.”