Lockerbie bomber 'close to death'

Journalists covering the battle for control of Libya have found the Lockerbie bomber comatose and near death, reports say.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi served eight years in prison for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people in the southern Scotland town of Lockerbie below.

He was released to return to Libya on compassionate grounds in 2009, after doctors diagnosed him with terminal cancer and gave him months to live.

CNN today reported it had found al-Megrahi hooked up to an intravenous drip in his palatial Tripoli villa.

His son Khaled Elmegarhi told reporters they were giving al-Megrahi oxygen, but were not receiving any medical advice.

"There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don't have any phone line to call anybody," he reportedly said.

Many in the United States and Britain were enraged when al-Megrahi received a hero's welcome on his return to Tripoli in 2009.

United States politicians called for an inquiry into whether oil company BP was involved in lobbying for his release.

Many are now calling for him to be extradited back to Britain to spend the rest of his life in a Scottish jail.

But the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), the rebel movement that toppled Gaddafi, has announced that it will not extradite al-Megrahi, CNN reported.

"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," NTC Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said.

Al-Megrahi has always maintained his innocence.

- Herald Online staff