The Scottish government is poised to decide whether to allow the former Libyan agent convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing to be released from prison and return home, it has been claimed.
An American lawyer who worked on the defence team of Abdel Basset al Megrahi said the Libyan, who is 57 and has terminal prostate cancer, was to be released imminently on compassionate grounds.
A Libyan official in Tripoli said an agreement was "in the last steps" but added that a deal had also been struck that neither side would make any official announcement about Megrahi's release until he was on home soil.
However, a Scottish government spokeswoman said no decision had been made, while a spokesman for Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said the reports were "complete speculation".
Megrahi was convicted under Scottish law and sentenced to life in prison for blowing up a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie as it flew from London to New York on December 18th, 1988. The bomb killed all 259 people on board, including 189 Americans, and 11 people on the ground.
Frank Rubino, an American lawyer who previously worked on Megrahi's legal team, told Sky television that he had been told by Megrahi's current defence team the Libyan would be allowed to go home soon. "I am told that it will be in the very near future," he said.
Families of victims of the bombing are sharply divided on reports of his impending release, however.
Relatives of British victims said they had never been convinced of Megrahi's guilt and broadly welcomed the reports of his possible release. "I don't believe the verdict is right," Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, told BBC radio. "It would be an abominable cruelty to force this man to die in prison."
Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died in the attack, said it was crucial Megrahi's ongoing appeal in the Scottish courts is allowed to continue to find out exactly what happened.
"I am not absolutely convinced of Megrahi's guilt nor of his innocence," she told the BBC. "We simply at this point do not know enough . . . to be able to make that judgment."
However, American relatives of some of those killed said there was no doubt about Megrahi's guilt and that he should be left to serve the rest of his life sentence in Scotland.
"There is no question in my mind that this man is guilty," Kathleen Flynn, whose son died in the bombing, told GMTV. Bert Ammerman, whose brother Tom was killed, said the release of Megrahi would be "insane, immoral [and] reprehensible", adding: "He should finish out his term in Scotland, pass away and then send him home in a casket."
Libya has repeatedly lobbied for Megrahi's release - most recently at a meeting in Italy between Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy and Prime Minister Gordon Brown in July.
Megrahi's release would be the latest milestone on Libya's journey from pariah state to a country restored to the international fold.
Reuters