The former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali al Megrahi, has died, his brother has told Reuters news agency.

East Renfrewshire Council, which is supposed to receive updates about his condition following his early release from prison, has said it has received no official confirmation of his death but it is investigating.

A Scottish court in 2001 convicted him of the 1988 attack on Pan Am flight 103, but he was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 because doctors said he was battling cancer and had only three months to live.

Since then there have been reports that al Megrahi has either died or was close to death, only for these to be later denied.

Sky's political editor Adam Boulton said it was difficult to get the latest reports confirmed by Libyan authorities because he is now a private citizen.

But he said there was "no doubt that this news will have a very significant impact".

"The American government always opposed the release of Megrahi on compassionate grounds back in 2009 - as indeed did David Cameron, then the leader of the Conservative opposition," he said.

"So the death of this convicted man... will I think help in drawing a line under that period where relations with Colonel Gaddafi's Libya were in active play, where there was give and take on both sides.

"But we should remember that the Scottish government of Alex Salmond... has always insisted that the decision to release the man they held in custody was entirely based on compassionate grounds - on the medical advice that he had very little time to live."

The former British ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles said his death would not automatically trigger any inquiry into the early release of Megrahi, which angered relatives of the victims.

All 259 people on the airliner died and 11 others on the ground in the Scottish town of Lockerbie were killed.



http://uk.news.yahoo.com/convicted-lockerbie-bomber-megrahi-dead-122252229.html