Scotland, September 18: Lockerbie Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi has launched a website with the aim of proving his innocence in the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Scotland in which 270 people died.
The former Libyan agent released information “which he hopes will establish his innocence” on the website, www.megrahimystory.net, his Scottish lawyer Tony Kelly said.
Megrahi was released from a Scottish jail on August 20 on compassionate grounds after medical advice said the 57-year-old prisoner would likely die within three months from spreading prostate cancer. He is now in hospital in Tripoli.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release him caused outrage in the United States and political turmoil in Britain, including questions about oil links between Britain and Libya. Scotland has its own legal system separate from the rest of Britain.
Megrahi was convicted of the bombing by a special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in 2002, and an appeal against his 27-year sentence was rejected the following year.
The Scottish criminal review commission said in 2007, however, that there appeared to be a danger he had been a victim of a miscarriage of justice, and a second appeal opened early this year.
This in turn was abandoned in August and he was freed on compassionate grounds.
—Agencies