Global Arab Network | Libya - Al-Megrahi to go free

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Libya - Al-Megrahi to go free

Global Arab Network - - Adam Turner

Thursday, 13 August 2009 08:59

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is set to be released on compassionate grounds due to his terminal cancer, British media reported late on Wednesday.
An American lawyer who worked on the defense team of Abdel Basset al Megrahi said the Libyan was to be released imminently on compassionate grounds.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for the December 1988 bombing of the plane over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people, is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

A Libyan official in Tripoli said an agreement was "in the last steps" but added that a deal had also been struck that neither side would make any official announcement about Megrahi's release until he was on home soil.

"The deal is now already in the last steps," the Libyan official, who did not want to be identified, said in Tripoli. "We have an agreement between the two sides not to make any statement until he (al Megrahi) comes home."

A Scottish government spokeswoman said "no decision has been made." MacAskill was "still considering all the representations ... and hopes to make a decision this month," she added.

The decision to free al-Megrahi rests with Scotland’s Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who visited the Libyan in a Glasgow jail and also met with victims’ families. MacAskill is expected to make the announcement next week.

Frank Rubino, an American lawyer who previously worked on Megrahi's legal team, told Britain's Sky television that he had been told by al Megrahi's current defense team the Libyan would be allowed to go home soon.

"I am told that it will be in the very near future," he said.

Libya has repeatedly called for Megrahi's release - most recently at a meeting between Gordon Brown and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi last month.

Libyan authorities made an application in July on behalf of al Megrahi, asking or him to be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return home.

British contractors are expected to benefit from any warming of relations between the two countries and al Megrahi's release would be the latest milestone on Libya's journey from pariah state to a country restored to the international fold.

Four years after al Megrahi's conviction, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing and agreed to pay about $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims' families - a move that helped clear the way for the lifting of sanctions and the restoration of Libya's ties with Western states. (Reuters, Times, SkyNewsTV)

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