Lockerbie bomber to go free

Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskillLondon  - The man convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, is likely to be released from prison on compassionate grounds, British media reported late Wednesday.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for the December 1988 bombing of the plane over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people, is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

The decision to free al-Megrahi rests with Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who visited the Libyan in a Glasgow jail and also met with victims' families.

MacAskill is expected to make the announcement next week, according to British media reports.

Al-Megrahi was charged, along with Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, with placing the bomb on board an Air Malta aircraft before it was transferred at Frankfurt airport onto the doomed Pan Am flight 103.

Al-Megrahi was convicted mainly as a result of the testimony of a Maltese shop owner who identified him as the man to whom he had sold the clothes in which the bomb was wrapped. (dpa)