THE Libyan agent convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was moved in secret yesterday to a prison where he can mix with other inmates.

Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi has been held since his conviction in January 2001 in solitary confinement at a specially built £250,000 unit in Barlinnie jail, on the outskirts of Glasgow.

Libyan diplomats had hoped that their former intelligence officer would be sent home to serve out his sentence after diplomatic relations were restored with Britain.

Officials refused to say last night if al-Megrahi’s transfer to Greenock prison was a first stage to his being returned to Tripoli. Many of the families of the 270 killed in the 1988 bombing of a New York-bound flight are sure to oppose any deal to send al-Megrahi back home.

The Libyan Government was not consulted about this switch, which al-Megrahi’s lawyers say could put him in danger from attacks by fellow inmates.

No special provisions have been made for al-Megrahi at Greenock, except he is to be a given a larger cell that was designed for a disabled prisoner.

His Glasgow-based lawyer, Eddie MacKechnie, described the decision to move his client as “surprising and disturbing” and said that the British had “gone back on the agreement” that al-Megrahi should be kept apart from other prisoners.

Mr MacKechnie said that he would talk to his client and Colonel Gaddafi’s Government on whether to challenge the move.

In Greenock al-Megrahi will share a cell block with others serving life sentences.

In November 2003 he was told that he must spend at least 27 years in jail before being considered for parole, though the Crown is appealing this sentence as “unduly lenient”.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review is due to announce whether al-Megrahi can appeal his conviction.

He was found guilty of placing a bomb on board Pan Am flight 103 which exploded in mid-air on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. The trial was held at a specially convened Scottish court at a military camp in the Netherlands.

Until now he has had very little contact with fellow inmates for fear of reprisals. He has been visited in his solitary unit, dubbed “Gaddafi’s Café”, by his family and the former South African president, Nelson Mandela.

The special suite at Barlinnie was built to house more than one inmate but only al-Megrahi has been convicted. The unit will now be “decommissioned”, say prison officials.

After Tony Blair shook hands with Colonel Gaddafi in his tent last year, Libyan diplomats hoped that as a sign of improved relations the UK would agree on “humanitarian grounds” for al-Megrahi to serve his sentence in Tripoli so that relatives could visit him more regularly.

Mr MacKechnie said that Libyan diplomats had recently raised the fate of al-Megrahi with Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary. “The concern of the Libyan Government and my client is that his personal safety and security should be preserved and that integration with other prisoners, which has not happened at all in Barlinnie, would be dangerous.”

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