WASHINGTON: United States officials have asked senior members of Libya's Transitional National Council (NTC) to review the case of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence agent convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the State Department announced on Monday. US officials asked the rebels to consider extraditing the ailing al-Megrahi if he does not die soon. A Scottish court sentenced al-Megrahi in 2001 to a minimum of 27 years of a life sentence but he was freed in August 2009 on compassionate grounds after doctors diagnosed him with terminal prostate cancer and gave him only months to live. Al-Megrahi returned to Libya to a hero's welcome from former dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his supporters. “This is a new day in Libya. This is a guy with blood on his hands, the lives of innocents,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters. “Libya itself under [former dictator Muammar] Gaddafi made a hero of this guy. Presumably, a new, free, democratic Libya would have a different attitude to a convicted terrorist.” “We asked the [NTC] to, as soon as it can, take a hard look at what it thinks ought to happen with Mr. Megrahi, and it is committed to do that.” Mohammad al-Alagi, the NTC Justice Minster, insisted on Monday that any discussion of the status of al-Megrahi would occur after an elected government is in place. According to his family, al-Megrahi is near death and struggling to remain conscious. “[He] cannot speak and when he does he asks for his mother. He is very, very sick,” his brother Abdel-Nasser al-Megrahi told reporters in Tripoli. The December 21, 1988 bombing over Lockerbie killed 270 people. The release of al-Megrahi enraged the families of many victims. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who as a US senator served as an outspoken advocate for victims' families, opposed the release of al-Megrahi. Nuland claimed Clinton's position had not changed. BM
