Bomber’s release ‘preferable’ for US

THE US Government told Scottish officials that the Lockerbie bomber’s release on compassionate grounds was “far preferable” to his transfer back to a Libyan jail, it was revealed yesterday.

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said yesterday day that while America “didn’t want” Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to be released, they would rather see him freed on account of his terminal cancer, than under the prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya.

Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing in which 270 people were killed.