Abdelbaset al-Megrahi

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Abdelbaset al-Megrahi : biography

1 April 1952 – 20 May 2012

On 14 August, lawyers representing Megrahi announced that he had applied to the High Court in Edinburgh two days previously to withdraw his second appeal, and that his condition had "taken a significant turn for the worse". On 19 August 2009, it was divulged that MacAskill had reached a decision on the bomber’s fate to be announced the following day. The following day, MacAskill granted his release on compassionate grounds, stating that Megrahi was in the final stages of terminal prostate cancer and was expected to die within three months. Speaking of the Scottish tradition of justice with compassion and mercy, MacAskill said he was "bound by Scottish values to release him", and allow him to die in his home country of Libya.

Immediately following the announcement, Megrahi, who had served just over 8½ years of his life sentence, was escorted by Strathclyde Police to Glasgow Airport where he boarded a specially chartered Afriqiyah Airways Airbus for Tripoli. Megrahi arrived back in time to join celebrations to mark 40 years since the country’s revolution.

Megrahi landed in Libya to national celebrations and acclaim. As he left the plane, a crowd of several hundred young people were gathered at Tripoli Airport to welcome him, some waving Libyan or Scottish flags, others throwing flower petals. Many had been ushered away by Libyan officials in an attempt to play down the arrival in accordance with British and US wishes. Megrahi was accompanied by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who had pledged in 2008 to bring al-Megrahi home, and was then joined on the aircraft steps by Lamin Khalifah Fhimah. This was the first time the pair had met since they had stood side by side during their eight-month trial at Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands 8½ years earlier.

After he left the aircraft, Megrahi was driven away in convoy for a long-awaited meeting with his 86-year-old mother, Hajja Fatma Ali al-Araibi, who a few days earlier had pleaded emotionally with Scottish Ministers to release her son. Hajja had not been told of her son’s terminal cancer for fear that the shock would be too much for her.

Megrahi also met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The reception was shown afterwards on Libyan state television.

In an interview the following day with The Times, Megrahi vowed to present new evidence before he died which would exonerate him of any involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. He said, "If there is justice in the UK I would be acquitted or the verdict would be quashed because it was unsafe. There was a miscarriage of justice … my message to the British and Scottish communities is that I will put out the evidence and ask them to be the jury". In May 2010, a sister of one of the victims expressed her desire to visit and forgive him, saying "I want to look him in the eye and make sure he knows our pain… God will judge him". She said the decision to release him was "more than we could ever expect from Libya if the tables were turned."

Following his release, Megrahi was taken to Tripoli Medical Center, Libya’s most advanced public clinic, for cancer treatment. A video of him in the hospital showed him using an oxygen mask to breathe. On 2 September 2009, it was reported that his cancer had worsened, and that he had been transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU). Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Seyala claimed that Megrahi had been moved to a special VIP wing of the hospital, was receiving full treatment from a team of doctors, and that his condition was not dangerous. Megrahi’s family claimed that they had been informed that he had been taken to the ICU, but they were not allowed to visit him. The Foreign Ministry confirmed that his family were not allowed to visit him, but said that it was to ensure his safety. On 5 September, Megrahi was released from the ICU, but remained under close observation by a team of doctors.

While in hospital, Megrahi underwent chemotherapy treatment, receiving the drug Docetaxel. He was discharged from hospital on 2 November, and sent to live with his family in the New Damascus district in west Tripoli, in a villa reportedly built or bought for him, shortly before his release, by the Libyan government. Under police protection, he resumed chemotherapy, making regular visits to hospital for chemotherapy sessions and other intensive treatment.