Ali al-Megrahi update - two stories

The BBC content themselves with reporting that (my emphasis):

"The condition of the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber has deteriorated, it has been confirmed.

...

The Tripoli Medical Centre in Libya said a scan has shown that the prostate cancer from which Megrahi is suffering has spread throughout his body. "

Interesting how the BBC use the word "confirmed" rather than "claimed", as though they want us to believe what they believe that releasing al-Megrahi was the right thing to do.


The BBC have no comment on the report in The Times that:

"The Lockerbie bomber had £1.8m in a Swiss bank account when he was convicted eight years ago, it has been revealed.

The Crown Office, Scotland’s equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, has confirmed it refused to grant bail to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi as recently as November last year because of concerns he might try to gain access to the money.

The existence of such a large sum in a personal account casts doubt on claims by the Libyan government that Megrahi was a low-ranking airline worker.

The disclosure also raises further questions about the wisdom of the Scottish government in releasing the bomber, who has terminal prostate cancer, on compassionate grounds in August."

Interesting? Not to the BBC for whom this fact would cloud their story and maybe get people asking questions. The al-Megrahi defence if this money had been raised at any appeal would apparently have
rested on claiming either that he had been given the money by Libyan Arab Airlines, his employer, to buy aircraft parts abroad in breach of the western trade embargo in place against his country at the time of the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am plane over Scotland, in which 270 people died or that that Megrahi had been entrusted with the funds to finance an attempt to include Libya in the Paris to Dakar rally. Are you convinced?

It seems that the issue of the secret bank account was never raised by the prosecution at the original trial because it came too late to be introduced as evidence.

So would you rather believe that the money was for buying aircraft parts, getting a Libyan car into a rally, for buying explosives and paying bribes to people or compensation for his upcoming incarceration?