JOIN USLockerbie plane bomber freed
In a move likely to be hailed by Libya as a new sign of its return to global respectability, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi — who has terminal prostate cancer — was given his freedom by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.
Megrahi is the only person convicted of blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people, in Britain’s worst ever terror attack. He has served just eight years of a minimum 27-year sentence.
The US and relatives of victims had opposed Megrahi's release and said he should serve his full life sentence in prison.
MacAskill said Megrahi, who medics say has less than three months to live, could return to Libya to die because Scottish law required that “justice be served but mercy be shown.”
The 57-year-old “now faces justice from a higher power... he is going to die,” MacAskill added.
In Tripoli, an official in the Libyan prime minister’s office said: “He is free and will arrive in Libya in the next few hours.” Libyan government spokesman said Megrahi was being flown home by a son of Libyan leader Gaddafi.
MacAskill has been considering three options in Megrahi’s case: transferring him to a Libyan jail, freeing him on compassionate grounds or keeping him in Greenock prison, near Glasgow in western Scotland.