Lockerbie bomber's life expectancy under scrutiny

By Lesley Kinney

The Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi has now lived longer than any other convicted murderer granted compassionate release in Scotland.

Megrahi was controversially freed nine months ago after the Scottish Government said he had around three months to live.

STV News has also learned that the Libyan has been working on a television documentary which will be released later this year.

Last August, when the Lockerbie bomber was allowed to go home to die, the Scottish Government quoted medical advice which estimated he had around three months to live.

Megrahi has defied that prognosis - and has now lived longer than any other convicted murderer granted compassionate release in Scotland since the procedure was introduced in 1993.

Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up by a terrorist bomb on December 21 in 1988 and landed in the Borders town. The atrocity claimed 270 lives, 259 on the plane and 11 residents on the ground.

The family of one of his victims, American Rick Monetti, has again spoken out against the decision to free him.

His father Bob Monetti said: "For the longest time the people of Lockerbie and the people of Scotland were heroes for us, but now it isn't that way. The fact that he has lived this long is not a surprise to anyone."

Thirty-eight prisoners have been granted compassionate release since 1993 and two thirds died within three months.

Of the 38, five were convicted murderers. Megrahi has lived longer than all of them with only four prisoners surviving for more than nine months.

On Wednesday Mr MacAskill said Megrahi remains a dying man.

He said: "There is no doubt by any clinician that this man has terminal prostate cancer. The period and prognosis is always difficult for individuals to define, but he remains terminally ill."

 

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