Lockerbie bomber Megrahi ‘disappears’ in Libya

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber who was controversially freed from jail this summer on compassionate grounds, appears to have gone missing in Libya after outliving doctors’ predictions that he would be dead by now.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released Megrahi amid a public furore. He had been serving a life sentence for killing 270 people after planting a bomb on Pan Am flight 103 in 1988. But at 57, he was said to be in the final stages of prostate cancer.

Megrahi’s freedom was granted after doctors visited him in Greenock Prison on July 28 and said he had less than three months to live. Only prisoners who are expected to survive 12 weeks or less are eligible for compassionate release.

Under that rationale, Megrahi should have been dead by October 28. Not only has Megrahi outlived those predictions by almost two months,  but he has now broken the terms of his release, which stipulated that he could not change his address or leave Tripoli and was bound to keep in regular communication with the Scottish government.

The Times reports that Megrahi’s Scottish monitors have been unable to reach him and that the paper’s own reporter has also been been unable to contact him. Over the past three days Megrahi was neither at his home nor at the Tripoli medical centre where he has been receiving treatment. A hospital receptionist told the Times that Megrahi had left the hospital "some time ago".

Jonathan Hines from East Renfrewshire council, one of Megrahi’s monitors, tried to contact the Libyan yesterday in an unscheduled call and was told he was too ill too speak.

Megrahi was last seen in public on September 9, when he briefly met a delegation of African politicians at the Tripoli Medical Centre. He was in a wheelchair, looking frail and coughing repeatedly.

His departure from hospital could mean that his latest cycle of chemotherapy treatment has ended. But if there is an innocent explanation, why would a member of Megrahi’s family not inform his monitors?

Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, called for an immediate investigation. He said: “This is outrageous and there will be intense anger that Britain’s biggest mass murderer appears to be able to disappear."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this item was posted, a spokesman for East Renfrewshire council confirmed on December 16 that they had finally been able to contact Abdelbaset al-Megrahi at his home in Libya. ·