Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, Lockerbie Bomber, Dies at 60, A.P. Reports
Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 bombing of an
American jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, died in Libya, nearly three years
after Scotland released him on humanitarian grounds, citing evidence that he was
near death with metastatic prostate cancer, family members told The Associated
Press and Reuters. He was 60.
The death of Mr. Megrahi, who always insisted he was innocent, foreclosed a
fuller accounting of his role, and perhaps that of the Libyan government under
the late dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, in the midair explosion of Pan Am
Flight 103, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.
A former Libyan intelligence officer who worked undercover at Libya’s national
airline, Mr. Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of orchestrating the bombing and
sentenced to life in prison, with a 27-year minimum. But eight years later,
after doctors said he was likely to die within three months, he was freed in
2009 under a Scottish law providing for compassionate release of prisoners with
terminal illnesses.
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