Lockerbie bomber found ‘in coma’

28 August 2011 Last updated at 19:48 ET

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was expected to die within months of his release in 2009

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is in a coma at his Tripoli home in Libya, it is being reported.

CNN said Megrahi appeared to be “at death’s door” in the care of family. He is technically on licence but his whereabouts had been unknown.

Megrahi was freed from a Scottish prison in 2009 on health grounds. There have been calls for him to be returned to jail in the UK or tried in the US.

But Libyan rebel leaders have said they do not intend to allow his extradition.

‘Surviving on oxygen’

Scottish officials had tried to contact Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi following the rebel advance into Tripoli.

Megrahi technically remains a Scottish prisoner released on licence and is obliged to remain in regular contact with East Renfrewshire Council.

On Friday, the Scottish government said he had not been due to contact them for some time yet but social workers from East Renfrewshire Council had been endeavouring to contact him.

A neighbour in Tripoli had earlier said Megrahi was whisked away by security guards last week as Gaddafi’s forces crumbled.

The US broadcaster reported on Sunday that Megrahi was “comatose” and “near death… surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip” and not eating.

“We just give him oxygen, nobody gives us any advice,” Megrahi’s son, Khaled, told the broadcaster.

“There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don’t have any phone line to call anybody.”

CNN reporter Nic Robertson said he last saw Megrahi two years ago and described his appearance as “much iller, much sicker, his face is sunken… just a shell of the man he was”.

Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted in connection with the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland in 1988.

‘Already judged’

Mohammed al-Alagi, justice minister for the new leadership in Tripoli, said: “We will not hand over any Libyan citizen to the West.

“And from points A, B and C of justice, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has already been judged once, and will not be judged again.

“We will not hand over any Libyan nationals, it’s Gaddafi who hands over Libyan nationals.”

Hopes had also been raised in the case of the killing of PC Yvonne Fletcher, after a suspect was recently identified.

PC Fletcher was shot while policing a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.

But the Sunday Times reported that senior Libyan officials would not hand anyone over.

Leader ‘pledge’

Hassan al-Sagheer, a member of Libya’s National Transitional Council, was quoted by the paper as saying: “Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle.”

It came as William Hague said the rebels had pledged to “co-operate fully” with the British authorities.

Mr Hague told the BBC: “This is an ongoing police investigation so it’s quite difficult for me to comment on.

“But I would say that when… [Mustafa Abdul] Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, was with us in London in May, he committed himself and the council to co-operate fully with the British government on these matters.”

He added: “I wouldn’t take what has been written in the press today as the last word on the matter.”

The National Transitional Council is now recognised by Britain as the sole governmental authority for Libya.

— ’re ’s , . : A ‘Malign Intellectual Subculture’ – George Monbiot Smears Chomsky, Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens.