EDINBURGH, Scotland — Scottish officials said Thursday that they are considering early release for the Lockerbie bomber.
British media reports say Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, will soon be freed on compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with cancer. The possibility of release has reignited the debate about whether justice has been done for victims of the December 1988 attack that killed 270 people — most of them Americans.
The Scottish government dismissed the reports by Sky News and BBC television that he would be released next week as speculation, and said Scotland’s justice minister had yet to review all case information before deciding whether to release al-Megrahi.
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington had not been made aware of any final decision.
Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan secret service agent, is the sole person convicted for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. He was arrested in 1991 and convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison.
