Libyan gets life for Lockerbie bombing

A Libyan intelligence agent has been sentenced to life for the Lockerbie bombing.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 48, who will serve his sentence in a Scottish prison, was jailed after three judges found him guilty at the Scottish court at Camp Zeist in Holland.

The judges recommended a minimum sentence of 20 years "in view of the horrendous nature of this crime".

Presiding judge Lord Sutherland told Megrahi that the 20-year period was "substantially less" than the court would have recommended were it not for Megrahi's age, and the fact that he will be serving his sentence in a foreign country.

Al Megrahi's co-defendant Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah was found not guilty of the bombing, also unanimously.

The two men were accused of causing the Lockerbie disaster and the mass murder of 270 passengers, crew and Lockerbie residents in the UK's worst peacetime atrocity.

The judges rejected claims of any Palestinian involvement in the bombing. In an 82-page written judgment they said they found no evidence of any other involvement other than that of "Libyan origin".

They added that, although Palestinian terror groups were involved in terrorist activities during the same period of the Lockerbie atrocity, "we are satisfied that there was no evidence from which we could infer that they were involved in this particular act of terrorism".

Al Megrahi stared straight ahead at the judges, his gaze never wavering, as the judges announced his fate.

Some relatives of the 270 killed in the Lockerbie outrage, reacting to the guilty verdict, have demanded that further action is taken against the Libyan leadership of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, arguing that Al Megrahi was following orders.