Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has met with two relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims.

Colonel Gaddafi spoke to Lisa Gibson and another relative during his visit to New York earlier in the week.

Ms Gibson, whose brother Kenneth was killed in the 1988 atrocity, visited the Libyan leader on Wednesday, the day of his rambling speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

She told CNN: "I welcomed him to America. I wanted him to know there were some people out there who've lost loved ones who have a different vision and different heart. He warmly received us."

Ms Gibson added: "He said he very much appreciated us coming and welcomed us."

The 39-year-old attorney from Colorado Springs said her Christian faith drove her to meet the man many see as ultimately responsible for the blowing up of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988.

The atrocity saw the death of 270 people, many of them American tourists.

Libyan national Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was convicted of the crime in 2001 and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail.

However, SNP justice secretary Kenny MacAskill released Megrahi from Greenock Prison to return home to Libya in August. Mr MacAskill took the controversial decision on compassionate grounds: Megrahi is suffering from terminal cancer.

Upon his return to Tripoli, Megrahi was met with a rapturous welcome complete with crowds waving Saltires. The scenes were roundly condemned across the world.

Ms Gibson told Gaddafi: "As a Christian, I need to forgive you. Only God knows if you are responsible.”

She added: "At the heart of terrorism is hate and the only way to effectively battle that is with love."

As Ms Gibson was meeting Colonel Gaddafi, other relatives of people murdered in the terrorist outrage assembled near the UN to voice their objection to Gaddafi’s presence there.

Susan Cohen, whose daughter died in the attack, emphasised that Gibson's actions did not reflect the feelings of the majority of victims’ families.

The unelected figurehead Gaddafi, whose formal title is ‘Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’, addressed the UN on his country’s behalf on Wednesday.

His hectoring performance lasted one hour and 36 minutes and ranged from his opinions on the US invasion of Grenada to the assassination of President John F Kennedy.  It was widely declaimed around the world.