APPROVEMENT: Megrahi is feeling better Sunday August 30,2009 THE cancer-stricken Lockerbie bomber, far from being close to death, is “getting better by the day”, his family said yesterday. Relatives claim the health of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 57, has shown marked signs of improvement and they now hope he could even make a full recovery. The revelation last night heaped further pressure on Gordon Brown to reveal his role in the controversial compassionate release of Megrahi, charged with killing 270 people by planting the bomb which blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988. The Prime Minister has so far insisted that the release was a matter for the Scottish government, but Tory leader David Cameron has demanded to know his true thoughts on the decision. The Sunday Express can reveal that Megrahi’s elderly father, Ali, has told Arab newspapers that he believes Scottish ministers and western media have painted a “darker picture” than necessary of his son’s condition and claims he is regaining his strength. He said: “I see that he is getting better day after day, and is much better than the first day that he returned to his homeland. I think that the sick are not just cured by medicine but also by having a high morale and a sense of freedom and these were not available to Abdulbaset in prison. “He was diagnosed with cancer less than a year ago. “A relative was diagnosed with a similar disease and he was treated and recovered completely. We hope that Abdelbaset recovers his health as well.” Megrahi was allowed home to Libya 10 days ago on the understanding he had less than three months to live. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made the decision to free him based on a report from Dr Andrew Fraser, the Scottish Prison Service’s head of health, saying the bomber’s prostate cancer was now advanced. However, there are growing claims Mr MacAskill failed to conduct sufficient checks into Megrahi’s condition before granting his compassionate release. On Wednesday it emerged medical reports highlighted “doubt” over the severity of the bomber’s cancer, with only one doctor in four agreeing he would die within three months, the timescale that made him eligible for release. Megrahi returned to a hero’s welcome in Libya and he has been well enough to be visited by thousands of people at his family home in Tripoli. In an interview yesterday, he backed calls for a Lockerbie public inquiry, saying it was “unfair” to the victims’ fam ilies not to have one.
WORLD NEWS
MEGRAHI ‘GETTING BETTER'
By Paula Murray
Sunday, 30 August 2009
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