A bitter transatlantic row broke out last night after the Obama Administration and relatives of Americans killed in the Lockerbie bombing reacted furiously to the expected release of the one man convicted of the attack.

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, could be flown home to Libya next week.

US families denounced any move to release him from his Scottish prison cell on compassionate grounds as vile and immoral. “This is a man who showed no compassion for the 270 people he blew up over Scotland,” said Kathleen Flynn, of New Jersey, whose son died in the bombing.

Philip Crowley, of the US State Department, said that officials had made their views clear to ministers in Britain. “We believe that [al-Megrahi] should spend the rest of his time in jail,” he said.

Expert View

The compassion which dictates the release of Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi has not been extended to relatives of the dead

Magnus Linklater

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Bomb fear in UK's worst air disaster

About 300 people were killed last night when a Pan American Boeing 747 crashed and exploded on the small town of Lockerbie

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Timeline: al-Megrahi and the Lockerbie bombing

The events from December 1988 when Flight 103 was blown up until al-Megrahi’s plea for relase on compassionate grounds

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Background

• Lockerbie, 20 years on - Q&A

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By contrast, British relatives of the victims welcomed the news — partly on humanitarian grounds but also because they doubted al-Megrahi’s guilt over the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 as it flew from London to New York in December 1988. It was Britain’s deadliest terrorist attack, killing 270 people.

America’s opposition to the Libyan’s release puts Gordon Brown’s Government in an invidious position as it has no power on this issue over the Scottish Nationalist-led administration north of the Border.

Some experts said that a decision to free al-Megrahi would have as much to do with international politics as his health. They speculated that the British and Scottish governments wanted to forestall an embarrassing appeal against his disputed conviction, protect growing commercial interests in Libya and remove an irritant in relations with a country possessing vast reserves of oil and gas.

Oliver Miles, a former British Ambassador to Libya, told The Times: “There’s certainly politics at play, no doubt about that. It’s tangled up with all these complicated interests and political shenanigans between the three capitals concerned.”

Susan Cohen, an American whose 20-year-old daughter died in the bombing, said: “It has to do with money and power and giving [Colonel Muammar] Gaddafi what he wants.”

The Scottish government insisted that no decision had been taken on whether to free al-Megrahi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombing in 2001. Al-Megrahi, 57, who is in Greenock prison, had prostate cancer diagnosed last year.

Officials said that Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Minister, would receive a detailed account on Monday of al-Megrahi’s medical condition, and reports from the prison governor and the Scottish Parole Board. He is expected to announce his decision within 48 hours of studying them.

However, Mr MacAskill is believed to have decided in principle that al-Megrahi can be released unless the medical report says that he has more than three months to live. Sources close to the minister told The Times that his “direction of travel” was to free the Libyan.

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