Jubilant Crowd Greets Lockerbie Bomber

11:54am UK, Friday August 21, 2009

The Lockerbie bomber has arrived home in Tripoli to be greeted by thousands of people waving Libyan and Scottish flags.



Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, had earlier boarded a plane at Glasgow airport after being released from HMP Greenock on compassionate grounds.

He was freed by the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, who said he made the decision because medical experts suggested the Libyan had less than three months to live.

As Megrahi's plane touched down at a military airport in the Libyan capital, there was a festive atmosphere.

Some of the crowd waiting to greet him waved flags, others were wearing t-shirts bearing his picture and Libyan songs blared.

The scenes were condemned as "sickening" by Conservative MP David Mundell.

"This is as we feared and why we said that Mr Megrahi should be kept in Scotland," he said.

"Alex Salmond's government has made a mistake of international proportions. These reports are sickening."

The 57-year-old was jailed for life after being convicted of killing 270 people - 189 of them American - when a Pan Am plane blew up over Lockerbie in December 1988.

Following his release, Megrahi branded his conviction a "disgrace" and told of the injustice of his "horrible ordeal" as he heads home to Libya.

In a statement read by his lawyer, he expressed sympathy for the victims' families and said: "I cannot find words in my language or yours that give proper expression to the desolation I have felt.

"This horrible ordeal is not ended by my return to Libya.

"It may never end for me until I die. Perhaps the only liberation for me will be death.

"And I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear: all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do."

He went on: "The remaining days of my life are being lived under the shadow of the wrongness of my conviction.

"I have been faced with an appalling choice: to risk dying in prison in the hope that my name is cleared posthumously or to return home still carrying the weight of the guilty verdict, which will never now be lifted."

Announcing the decision to free al Megrahi, Mr MacAskill said: "Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power.

"It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final and irreversible.

"He is going to die."

The US, which has said it "deeply regrets" Scotland's decision, has urged Libya not to give him a "hero's welcome" on his return.

President Obama described the Libyan's release as a "mistake" and said he should have been kept under house arrest.

Meanwhile, Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson has said the Scottish Parliament will be recalled on Monday to debate Megrahi's release.

Megrahi dropped an appeal against his conviction earlier this week, paving the way for his release.

In an announcement which lasted more than 20 minutes, the justice secretary acknowledged Megrahi had shown no compassion to his victims.

I don't know how you show compassion to someone who has shown no remorse for what he has done.

Kara Weipz, from New Jersey, who lost her student brother Rick

But Mr MacAskill said: "That alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days."

He added: "I am conscious there are deeply held feelings and that many will disagree whatever my decision. However a decision has to be made.

"Scotland will forever remember the crime that has been perpetrated against our people and those from many other lands, the pain and suffering will remain forever.

"Some hurt can never heal, some scars can never fade. Those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive.

"Their pain runs deep and the wounds remain."

Mr MacAskill rejected a separate application by Megrahi to serve the rest of his sentence in Libya as part of a prisoner transfer.