**Sapphire**
08-20-2009, 02:48 PM
EDINBURGH — The Libyan convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing is to be freed on compassionate grounds, the Scottish government said on Thursday.
Former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who is terminally ill with prostate cancer, will be released from prison in Scotland and allowed to return to Libya.
"Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power,"
Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill told a news conference. "It is terminal, final and irreversible. He is going to die."
Megrahi, 57, was convicted in 2001 of the murder of all 259 people on board a Pan Am Boeing 747 and 11 killed on the ground when the aircraft exploded in mid-air above the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
He will be flown to the Libyan capital Tripoli from Glasgow, Scotland, on Thursday afternoon, the BBC reported.
Former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who is terminally ill with prostate cancer, will be released from prison in Scotland and allowed to return to Libya.
"Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power,"
Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill told a news conference. "It is terminal, final and irreversible. He is going to die."
Megrahi, 57, was convicted in 2001 of the murder of all 259 people on board a Pan Am Boeing 747 and 11 killed on the ground when the aircraft exploded in mid-air above the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
He will be flown to the Libyan capital Tripoli from Glasgow, Scotland, on Thursday afternoon, the BBC reported.