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Lockerbie bomber skips town before bombs hit
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi not to be found at his Tripoli home - nor at the new house he’s having built down the road
One target that would be almost as bad for morale in the pro-Gaddafi camp as a direct hit on the Brotherly Leader and Guide would be a Tomahawk cruise missile landing on the home of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Megrahi has been living in Tripoli - in some splendour if you believe the tabloids - since he was flown out of Scotland in August 2009 having been released from Greenock Prison on compassionate grounds. Doctors diagnosed prostate cancer and said he had only three months to live.
To the fury of families who lost loved ones when the Pan Am jet exploded over Lockerbie, killing a total of 270 people, Megrahi not only remains alive but is accorded the status of local hero and given the finest medical attention Gaddafi's oil money can buy.
As a result, he has now survived more than 500 days past the 'limit' imposed by his three-months-to-live prognosis (see The First Post's handy calculator, below).
There are those who believe that Western forces might grab the chance and target his spacious home in the New Damascus district of Tripoli, perhaps guided there by the special ops units said to be on the ground in the Libyan capital.
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Too late. Megrahi and his minders are one step ahead, according to latest reports.
A Libyan government source was reported last week to have said: "We know targets are already being worked out by the West, and Brother al-Megrahi is certain to be high on the list."
As a result, neighbours of Megrahi in the New Damascus district of Tripoli claim he was moved out of his home shortly before the bombardment started.
Western reporters have discovered no sign of him there. Nor is he to be found at the new house he is having built for himself just down the road (an odd decision, some might think - why go through the nightmare of having the builders in when you're on the verge of death?).
According to the Scottish Daily Record, until his recent disappearance Megrahi was regularly driven to the half-built house to check on progress. To the fury of Scottish opposition politicians who still believe Megrahi should never have been released from jail, he would arrive, chauffeur driven, either in a red Lamborghini or a giant Hummer. ·
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Megrahi's release (despite protestations to the contrary) was also very convenient to the CIA, in that it prevented him appealing his conviction; a conviction that relied almost entirely on the testimony of some VERY dodgy witnesses who have subsequently been discovered also to have also been CIA "assets". An appeal would have shone the spotlight rather more directly on their evidence.