Lockerbie Bomber Freed To Return to Libya to Die

Scotland released on Thursday a former Libyan agent jailed for life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans, because he is dying of cancer.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who has less than three months to live, was being returned to Libya on compassionate grounds, a decision strongly criticised by the United States, which had campaigned to keep him in prison.

"He is a dying man, he is terminally ill," Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill told a news conference. "My decision is that he returns home to die."

A Libyan government spokesman said Megrahi was being flown home with a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.