Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi drops bid to clear his name

Abdul Baset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a Libyan spy, is serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison for his part in blowing up Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground.

His legal team have been working for many months towards a fresh appeal against his conviction at a special criminal court in The Hague in 2001.

They are said to have changed tack, however, after al-Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. Some reports give him as little as three months to live, and he is said to want to see out his final days in his home country.

Rather than pursue out a drawn-out legal appeal to clear his name, al-Megrahi's advisers have approached the Scottish government with an appeal for either clemency or at the least a transfer to a Libyan jail.

No extradition or release is permissible while criminal proceedings are still active. As a result, three judges at the High Court in Edinburgh today heard al-Megrahi's legal team lodge a Minute of Abandonment, formally dropping their legal bid to clear his name.

A decision is now awaited from Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Minister, about the Libyan's fate.