Post date: May 20, 2012 3:18:52 PM
TRIPOLI, LIBYA (MAY 20, 2012) (REUTERS) - Mourners began gathering at the Tripoli home of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, on Sunday (May 20).
A brother of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, responds to his death as mourners gather at the house where he died.
Megrahi, who was 60, died at his home after a long battle with cancer.
Relatives were seen arranging chairs to prepare a funeral tent at the home.
"Sadly today Abdel Basset al-Megrahi passed away two hours ago because of cancer. He was diagnosed in Scotland when he was in prison there. We as a family think that he got cancer because of the radiation which was used to search him while he was in prison in Scotland," his brother Mohamed told Reuters Television.
Megrahi had been in and out of hospital for weeks and he was taken for an emergency blood transfusion in April.
He was held in a prison in the town of Greenock in western Scotland after he was tried and convicted for the bombing under Scottish law, although the trial was held in the Netherlands.
In November 2008, Megrahi's lawyers asked a court to free him on bail, saying he was suffering from advanced prostate cancer.
He was later released from the Scottish prison on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government and returned to Libya, a decision criticised by the United States.
"We used to call him 'the accused innocent' -- he was convicted two times, he passed away, God bless his soul," his brother Mohamed added.
Megrahi, who served as an intelligence agent during the rule of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, denied any role in both the bombing and suspected human rights abuses in his home country before Gaddafi's fall and death in a popular uprising last year.