EDINBURGH – A former Libyan agent jailed for life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people flew home yesterday after Scottish authorities released him on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, believed to have less than three months to live, was released on the order of Scotland’s justice minister despite strong opposition from the US, which had campaigned to keep him in prison.
Pan Am flight 103 was carrying 189 Americans when it left London for New York on December 21st, 1988. In all, 259 people on board and 11 on the ground were killed in the bombing.
“He is a dying man, he is terminally ill,” Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill told reporters in explanation. “My decision is that he returns home to die.”
Megrahi, wearing a white tracksuit and baseball cap and clutching a white scarf to his face, walked uneasily up the steps to a Libyan aircraft at Glasgow airport with the aid of a stick. The aircraft then left to fly him home to Tripoli.
In a statement issued by his lawyer after his departure, Megrahi said he was innocent and had been wrongly jailed, but also thanked the people of Scotland for setting him free.
“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,” he said.
“Those who bear me ill will, I do not return that to you.
“This horrible ordeal is not ended by my return to Libya. It may never end for me until I die.”
The US government, which opposed Megrahi’s early release, said it deeply regretted 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,” the White House said in a statement.
Megrahi (57) is the only person convicted of the bombing. He maintained his innocence, but lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, though a Scottish review board ruled in 2007 that there might have been a miscarriage of justice. A second appeal was withdrawn this week, opening the way for his release on compassionate grounds.
Relatives of many of the American victims thought Megrahi should have served his full life sentence in prison after being convicted of Britain’s deadliest terrorist attack.
Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103, a group that represents the families of US victims, said he understood the Libyan government had promised that Megrahi would not “go back to a hero’s welcome”.
But that did not seem to be the case as hundreds of young Libyans gathered at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport where Megrahi’s aircraft was expected to land. Many waved the national flag and held banners of praise for Libya’s government and for Megrahi. Many banners carried the name of Libya’s National Youth Association. One read: “You promised and you fulfilled the promise and you returned Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to his family.”
While the relatives of many American victims were convinced of Megrahi’s guilt, the families of many Britons killed have questioned the quality of the evidence used to convict Megrahi and some have campaigned for his release to die in Libya.
“I am delighted. I don’t think he had anything to do with it and I think he was effectively framed,” Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said.
While Megrahi’s departure from Britain draws a line under an eight-year saga, the implications of his release for British-Libyan relations could be seen for years to come. Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy sees Megrahi’s freedom as one of the rewards he has received from western powers for giving up his nuclear ambitions in 2003, Libya analysts say. – (Reuters)