A bomber's life --- in luxury

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'TERMINALLY-ILL' BOMBER LIVING IN LUXURY VILLA AFTER RELEASE SPARKS FRESH FURY

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LONDON - The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is living with his family in a luxury villa in Libya six months after he was released from jail on compassionate grounds because he had less than three months to live.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer, no longer receives hospital treatment after ending the course of chemotherapy that he had been given after returning to his homeland last August.

Professor Karol Sikora, the London-based doctor who examined Megrahi and predicted he would be dead by last October, admitted last weekend that the fact the bomber is still alive might be "difficult" for the families of the 270 victims of the attack.

The latest disclosure will incense many of the relatives of those who died in the bomb blast in December 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in mid air over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270. Most did not want Megrahi released and they suspected he would live longer than the predicted three months.

The Sunday Telegraph revealed last September that the Libyan government had paid for the medical evidence which helped Megrahi, 57, to be released. The life expectancy of Megrahi was crucial because, under Scottish rules, prisoners can be freed on compassionate grounds only if they are considered to have this amount of time, or less, to live.

One leading prostate cancer specialist, Mr Chris Parker, cast serious doubt yesterday on the wisdom of predicting that Megrahi had only three months to live - when a patient still had to undergo chemotherapy.

Megrahi is now living in a spacious two-storey villa with his wife and their five grown-up children in a prosperous suburb of Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

Prof Sikora, one of the examining doctors who examined Megrahi last Sunday, said: "My information from Tripoli is that it's not going to be long (before Megrahi dies). They stopped any active treatment in December and he has just been going downhill very slowly at home. He is on high doses of morphine (a painkiller) and it's any day now."

He suspected that Megrahi was still alive because he had received a "psychological" boost from returning to his homeland and being reunited with his family.THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

From TODAY, Monday, 22-Feb-2010

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