Lockerbie bomber refused bail
Updated on 14 November 2008
The man convicted of killing 270 people when a Pan-Am jet was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, has lost his bid to be freed on bail.
In Edinburgh, the Lord Justice General, Lord Hamilton, with Lord Kingarth and Lord Wheatley refused the appeal by Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi - who was diagnosed with cancer last month.
Al-Megrahi, a 56-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent, is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years for the December 21, 1988 atrocity.
He was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001 and lost an appeal in 2002, but was given a fresh chance to clear his name in June last year when the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred his case back to appeal judges for a second time.
His appeal is due to be heard next year.
British relatives' spokesman Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed, said it was difficult to see the justification for the decision to refuse bail. In a statement, he said: "It has never been a goal of our group to seek revenge."
The statement added: "And the refusal of a return to his family for a dying man whose verdict is not even yet secure looks uncomfortably like either an aspect of revenge - or perhaps timidity."
At a hearing last week, appeal judges in Edinburgh were told a "compelling case" existed for releasing al-Megrahi on bail pending his appeal. The court heard he was terminally ill and should be released on compassionate grounds.
Al-Megrahi's defence team said he did not have long to live and should be released in order to reside with his family in Scotland while receiving medical treatment.
But Lord Hamilton said: "The critical question, as the court sees it, is, against the background of the atrocity of which the applicant stands convicted, whether the applicant's health, present and prospective, is such as the court should on compassionate grounds now admit him to bail.
"On balance the court is not persuaded, on the information before it, that it should.
"While the disease from which the appellant suffers is incurable and may cause his death, he is not at present suffering material pain or disability."
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