Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's death does not end Lockerbie questions

Abdebaset al-Megrahi has died in Libya.

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has died in Libya.

Megrahi, who was given compassionate release from prison by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill in 2009 had been suffering from prostate cancer.

The decision caused a political row on both sides of the Atlantic. He is the only person who has ever been convicted of carrying out the Lockerbie terrorist atrocity, where Pan Am flight 103 blew up over the skies of the Scottish town in December 1988, killing 270 people.

An unprecedented political row broke out following Megrahi's release, and families of the victims were divided over the decision. Despite his death, Megrahi remains the subject of a bitter division.

Dr Jim Swire said: "Well, I feel I've lost a friend. Remember that I don't believe he was guilty as charged, and I was impressed by his attitude in prison and what he said to me on various occasions. So I feel I've lost a friend. I grieve for his family."

Meanwhile, Bob Monetti said: "He's now serving a sentence by the judge who has all the facts, and he'll get what he deserves - finally. He certainly didn't get it in Scotland."

The divide started long before Megrahi was freed. At its heart, lies his conviction for mass murder.

Pan Am 103 was flying from London to New York, with 259 passengers and crew, when a bomb exploded in its forward hold. The plane broke apart and fell five miles onto Lockerbie, killing another 11 people on the ground. An unprecedented international investigation was led by Scottish police, with assistance from numerous law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including the FBI, MI5 and the CIA.

In 1991, two men were accused, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah.

Prosecutors alleged Megrahi and Fhimah were Libyan intelligence agents, responsible for an act of state-sponsored terrorism. They were said to have hidden the bomb in a suitcase tagged to be flown to New York.

The suitcase was smuggled onto a flight from Malta. Unaccompanied by a passenger and undetected by security, it made it through Frankfurt to Heathrow, where it was loaded onto Pan Am 103. The suitcase contained clothes from a shop in Malta.

The shopkeeper told the trial Megrahi resembled the man who bought them. The Libyan was linked to the company that made the bomb timer. The prosecution said Megrahi was in Malta when the bomb started its journey, using a fake passport, supplied by the Libyan intelligence service.

Crown Office prosecutor John Logue said: "The first time he used it in 1988 was to fly to Malta, on 20th December. He then used it again the following day, to leave Malta, to go back to Tripoli, and then he never used the passport again."

However, in a TV interview, Megrahi denied this, saying: "On 20th of December or 21st, at that time I wasn't there - believe me. I was here with my family in Tripoli."

The judges at the Lockerbie trial did not believe him. After nine months of evidence, at a Scottish court sitting in the neutral Netherlands, they convicted Megrahi of mass murder. Fhimah was cleared.

Five more judges rejected Megrahi's first appeal and he started a 27-year life sentence in Scotland.

In 2007, on the day BP signed a $900m oil contract with Libya, the Labour government started talks with Libya on a prisoner transfer agreement.

Then Megrahi won a second appeal. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission announced he might have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Having spent almost four years investigating the case, the commission rejected almost all of the arguments put forward by Megrahi's lawyers.

Gerard Sinclair from the Criminal Cases Review Commission said: "Only three of those grounds were grounds for referral. For three were rejected. There were an additional three grounds which the commission identified as being potential grounds for referral."

It said there was new evidence that Megrahi was not in Malta when the clothes were bought at the shop.

Gerard Sinclair added: "The identification of Mr Megrahi in the shop, buying the clothes that were subsequently found in the debris at Lockerbie, is central to the conviction, and I think that's recognised. There certainly was a concession to that effect, before the Appeal Court."

John Logue said: "We were ready, willing and able to defend Mr Megrahi's conviction in the Appeal Court and would have done so, had that appeal continued."

Terminally ill with prostate cancer, Megrahi abandoned the second appeal, just days before his release.

The prison service's director of health, Dr Andrew Fraser, said Megrahi had around three months to live, qualifying him for compassionate release. The prison governor and parole board recommended that he should be freed.

Bob Monetti said: "There was some small satisfaction in having at least one Libyan in jail in Scotland, for life. But life turned out to be eight years."

None of the cancer specialists consulted by Dr Fraser had backed his three months prognosis. Megrahi had refused chemotherapy in Scotland but started it as soon as he got home to Libya. The controversy was reborn when American senators linked the release to BP.

US Senator Charles Schumer said: "Now we find the compassionate release was bogus - that it wasn't close to the facts that he had three months to live."

US President Barack Obama said: "I think all of us here in the United States were surprised, disappointed and angry about the release."

On the first anniversary of the release, the SNP government insisted it had followed the rules and acted on the advice of trusted officials.

First Minister Alex Salmond said: "We made a decision in good faith. People agree, disagree with the decision, but we made it in good faith. That is what's important, I think."

Megrahi always protested his innocence but went home having given up his last chance of proving it. His conviction stands. Most of the American relatives are convinced he was guilty. British campaigners led by Dr Jim Swire believe he was not.

He said: "We know that five months before Lockerbie, the Iranians had an airbus, and 290 pilgrims, destroyed by the US missile cruiser, and we know they swore revenge. Five months later, Lockerbie happened."

Bob Monetti said: "What I'd like to see from anybody is that much evidence, real honest evidence, that it was somebody else."

Asking the men who brought him to justice if they have any doubts, provokes an angry response.

Retired Chief Constable George Esson said: "You're asking me was I complicit in putting an innocent man to the jail. It's a challenge to the integrity not only of me - of all the detectives, of the Crown, the fiscal service, all the witnesses, all the judicial authorities."

Retired Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson said: "I'm sick and tired of saying this - what is in it for me to try and fit somebody up to go behind bars for 40 years? You must be joking."

Former FBI Agent Richard Marquise said: "We always hoped that Mr Megrahi would be sitting in jail in Scotland, and one day would wake up and say "You know, I need to tell the rest of the story" - and it didn't happen. Now that he's died, it's never going to happen. The rest of the story is never going to come out."

For more than two decades, the Lockerbie case has been shrouded in conspiracy theories. No one can say what would have happened if Megrahi's second appeal had continued. The outcome, whatever it was, might have brought some semblance of finality to the case. His death has not.

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