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No early release for dying Lockerbie bomber

by Dave Keating | November 14, 2008 at 04:06 am

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The man convicted for perpetrating the Lockerbie bombing, the worst act of terrorism in British history, has had his appeal for early release rejected in Scotland. The man is suffering from cancer, but witnesses says he could still potentially have many years left to live.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan man jailed for the Lockerbie bombing, today lost an attempt to secure early release from prison because he is terminally ill with cancer.

Judges from Scotland's court of criminal appeal rejected an application from his defence team for him to be freed pending the outcome of an appeal against his conviction.

Lawyers for Megrahi, currently seven years into a 27-year sentence for bombing Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21 1988, had requested his immediate release from Greenock prison to live with his family near Glasgow under strict bail conditions.

The former Libyan intelligence officer is additionally appealing against the conviction after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said last year he may have been wrongly imprisoned. He has repeatedly denied carrying out the bombing that killed 270 people, including all 259 people on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie, where the plane crashed.