Lockerbie bomber Megrahi spotted at Gaddafi rally

The only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, has been seen in public for the first time since the early days of his return to Tripoli, when he received a hero's welcome from Colonel Gaddafi on his release from a Scottish jail in August 2009.

He was filmed by Libyan state television yesterday, sitting in a wheelchair and looking frail, as he attended a rally of his tribe in the Libyan capital.

As the Times reports today, the rally was "presumably in support of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi" and Megrahi's presence was doubtless no accident. "It may well have been intended as a gesture of defiance by the regime at a time when the US, Britain and other Western nations are helping Libya's rebels in their fight to remove Colonel Gaddafi from power," the paper says.

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of the visit by a team of medics to Greenock jail which resulted in his controversial release on compassionate grounds. The doctors confirmed that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and said he had only three months to live.

Based on that prognosis, Scotland's justice minister made the decision that despite the magnitude of the crime of which he had been convicted - 270 people died when the Pan Am airliner blew up over the town of Lockerbie in 1988 – he should be freed and allowed to go home to die.

Amazingly – and to the fury of many politicians and families of the Lockerbie victims – he continues to live, almost two years later.

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In March, it was widely reported that he might have been moved from his home in Tripoli. But The First Post has now established that this is very unlikely to be the case. Under the terms of his release, he must tell East Renfrewshire Council if he ever plans to move from his permanent address. According to a council spokesman, he has made no such application. ·