Lockerbie bomber released

A Scottish judge ordered the release of al-Megrahi, 57, from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds as he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and only has three months to live.

"Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power," said Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill at a news conference on Thursday. "It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to die."

Shortly afterwards Megrahi boarded a Libyan jet that had been sent from Tripoli to collect him.

Relatives of the victims and the United States government were opposed to his release. On Tuesday US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that it would be "absolutely wrong" to free al-Megrahi, who was responsible for a "horrendous crime."

His guilt has always been in question. Some are convinced that he was responsible, while others have consistently labeled his conviction a miscarriage of justice. Either way, Megrahi is the only one ever to be tried and convicted.

Circumstantial evidence

Megrahi, a father of five, was born in Tripoli, Libya in 1952. He has a good command of the English language, a skill he picked up when he studied in the US. He had also visited Britain several times.

He ran an international relations think tank in Libya called the Center for Strategic Studies, a job that the FBI has claimed provided him with the perfect cover to work as an operative for the Libyan Intelligence Services (JSO).

For a time, he was also based in Malta as director of security for Libyan Arab Airways (LAA), a job that prosecutors said gave him knowledge and access to secure airlines.

The key piece of evidence in his trial was that pieces of clothing that Megrahi had bought in Malta were found wrapped around the bomb.

A fateful flight

On December 22, 1988, Pan Am flight 103 took off from London's Heathrow airport, headed for New York. On board were 259 passengers. Approximately 38 minutes into the flight, the plane exploded at 31,000 feet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all the passengers as well as 11 people on the ground.

It took three years of painstaking investigation, but finally in 1999, officials indicted two Libyans, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, on 270 counts of murder.

By then the two men were home and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi refused to hand them over. Thus began years of international pressure on Libya.

In 1992 the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Libya over its refusal to hand over the men.

It was not until six years later, in 1998, that Gadhafi finally said that the trial could take place, but only in a neutral country.

The US and Britain proposed using Scottish law in the Netherlands and Gadhafi agreed.

After Nelson Mandela visited Gadhafi in 1999, the men were finally extradited and the trial began at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Justice takes time

The trial began in 2000, and from the start both of the accused denied any involvement in the Lockerbie bombing.

The proceedings lasted a year and in the end, al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison while Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.

Al-Megrahi immediately launched an appeal and Fhimah went home.

In 2002, a panel of five Scottish judges began hearing his appeal which was denied three months later.

The next several years saw more legal wrangling between al-Megrahi and the Scottish legal system. In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission recommended that he should be granted a second appeal.

Power politics

In the background of all the legal proceedings was a combination of money, oil and politics.

Oil makes up a big part of the Libyan economy. According to the CIA Factbook, the Libyan economy depends almost entirely on revenues from the oil sector, which contribute about 95 percent of export earnings, about one quarter of the gross domestic product, and roughly 60 percent of public sector wages. In other words, UN sanctions hit Libya very hard.

Libya clearly felt the strain and within the last few years the Libyans have renounced nuclear arms and agreed to pay compensation to the families of the Lockerbie victims.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was among the first politicians to become involved in helping British Petroleum (BP) and Shell win exploration acreage in Libya.

The release of al-Megrahi could ease tensions between Britain and Libya and open further business opportunities.

In fact some of the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombings have intimated that a deal has been struck.

av/Reuters/AFP/dpa
Editor: Susan Houlton