UK minister condemns Lockerbie bomber’s ‘hero’s welcome’

It was "deeply distressing" and "deeply upsetting" to see the convicted Lockerbie bomber get a hero’s welcome in Libya, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Friday. The way Libya handles the return of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi will determine its place on the world stage, Miliband said. Al Megrahi, 57, was freed Thursday from the Scottish prison where he had been serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

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Transcript: Scotland official talks of Lockerbie release

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago was returned to his native Libya on Thursday. He suffers from terminal prostate cancer and was freed from prison in Scotland, with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill citing compassionate grounds for the release and saying al Megrahi was “going home to die.” “Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available,” MacAskill said. He spoke to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the case.

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Armstrong brings Scottish town to a standstill

Seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong brought a Scottish town center to a standstill on Tuesday when hundreds of people joined him for a group bike ride. The seven-times Tour de France winner used social networking site Twitter to invite fans to take part in the event in Paisley, Scotland and — as a result — around 200 people gathered in the town’s High Street. Fans took photographs and asked for autographs from the American and the watching crowd applauded and cheered as the group set off on their ride

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Lockerbie: the aftermath remembered

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s fate hangs in the balance. The Libyan man convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie bombings has terminal prostate cancer and, according to his lawyers, just weeks to live. Scotland’s Justice Minister Frank MacAskill is weighing up whether to release him on compassionate grounds so he can die at home; to transfer him to a Libyan jail under a prisoner transfer agreement drawn up between Libya and the UK; or whether to keep him in a Scottish jail for the rest of his days.

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Lockerbie bomber drops appeal, Scottish agency says

A Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, is dropping his appeal, the Scottish Court Service said Friday. The move may be part of a deal convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is seeking with Scottish authorities to be released on compassionate grounds. Al-Megrahi, 57, is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

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Pan Am bomber at heart of controversy since 1988

Pan Am Flight 103 was 31,000 feet in the air, heading for New York City, when it exploded over Scotland on the longest night of the year, December 21, 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground below. It was the world’s deadliest act of air terrorism until the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to the FBI. American and British investigators painstakingly pieced together the aircraft’s wreckage and found it had been destroyed by a bomb, which they accused Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and another man of planting

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