Post date: May 21, 2012 6:42:33 PM
Speaking on the day of Megrahi's burial his cousin, Mohamed Rashid, said:"He (Abdul Basset al-Megrabi) had said: 'If God gives me health and I live longer I will go back and appeal until I prove my innocence, because I am innocent.'"
Megrahi, who always said he was not responsible for bringing down the jumbo jet on the Scottish town and killing 270 people, died in his bed in Tripoli on Sunday (May 20) surrounded by family.
A relative of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the Libyan national convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, says he had wanted to clear his name before dying.
TRIPOLI, LIBYA, (MAY 21,2012) (REUTERS) - A relative of the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie said on Monday (May 21) that his uncle, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, wanted to prove his innocence before he died.
Megrahi was found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001 but was freed in 2009 and returned to Libya because he had terminal cancer and was not expected to live long.
His release from jail in 2009 caused huge controversy in Britain and the United States, where most of the victims were from. But his death, at 60, from cancer, barely made the television news in Libya, where people are focused on reconstruction after overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed war last year.
The decision by officials in Scotland to repatriate Megrahi angered relatives of many victims, 189 of whom were American, and was criticized by Washington as he received a hero's welcome from Gaddafi, who was killed by rebels last year.
That Megrahi survived for nearly three years after his release from jail caused discomfort in Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron, visiting the United States on Sunday, said Megrahi should never have been freed.
The White House said it would not end the quest for justice and Scottish leader Alex Salmond said Scottish lawyers were still seeking other suspects.
Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), keen to distance themselves from the bombing and Megrahi, has said it would work with the Scottish government over the possible involvement of others in the 1988 attack.
Megrahi, the only person convicted for the bombing, was found guilty under Scottish law of secretly loading a suitcase bomb onto a plane at Malta's Luqa Airport, where he was head of operations for Libyan Arab Airlines in December 1988.
The suitcase was transferred at Frankfurt to another flight and then onto New York-bound PanAm Flight 103 at London's Heathrow airport, concluded Scottish judges sitting at a converted Dutch military base selected as a neutral trial venue.
Megrahi, handed over by Gaddafi under a U.N.-brokered deal, always insisted he was merely an airline executive, not a Libyan intelligence agent as prosecutors charged.
His trial was part of a process of rapprochement by which Gaddafi distanced himself from association with groups regarded as terrorists in the West and secured renewed cooperation with Western firms keen to exploit Libya's oil and gas reserves.
Many people in Britain say they believe Megrahi was a scapegoat and families of the victims fear they will never know the truth.
Megrahi told Reuters in October the West had exaggerated his role and the truth about what happened would emerge soon.
But his brother Abdulhakim said he was too sick to utter anything on his deathbed and anything he may have known died with him.