Scotland to Free Lockerbie Bomber on ‘Compassionate Grounds’

Scotland will free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset Ali Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill said at a news conference that Megrahi will “be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya to die,” the New York Times reports.

Megrahi had served eight years of a 27-year sentence in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight that killed 270 people. The Obama administration had opposed Megrahi’s release.