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Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of murdering 270 people when a bomb he planted on Pan-Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, has been released from prison after serving eight years of a life sentence...
...Making the announcement on Thursday, Justice Secretary of Scotland Kenny MacAskill said that Al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds because he has terminal prostate cancer and is unlikely to live past the next three months. A Libyan jet met Al-Megrahi at Scotland's Glasgow Airport to take him back to Tripoli, where he was greeted by hundreds of people, many of them waving flags. Al-Megrahi was met by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was quoted as saying, "I would like to thank the Scottish government for its courageous decision and understanding...
...release drew criticism from U.S. President Barack Obama's spokesman and many of the American relatives of those on board the flight, as well as investigators who prepared the evidence that led to Al-Megrahi's conviction. However, some British relatives of the Lockerbie victims and the legal expert who helped design the trial that convicted Al-Megrahi expressed support for the decision...
...prepared statement, MacAskill said that compassion was "a defining characteristic of Scottish people" and that "the perpetuation of an atrocity cannot and should not be a basis for losing sight of who we are ... Mr. Al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power. It's one that no court ... could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going...
...Al-Megrahi was convicted in a specially convened Scottish court at Camp Zeist in The Netherlands in 2001. Prosecutors argued that he placed a bomb, hidden in boom box inside a suitcase, on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, Germany. From there, the bomb was transferred onto the Pan Am plane that went first to London's Heathrow Airport and then took off for New York City. The bomb exploded as the plane flew over Scotland, causing it to crash on to the town of Lockerbie near the Scottish border. Another man - Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima - was also tried...