The only man convicted for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet which killed 270 people when it blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie is drifting in and out of a coma, his brother said yesterday.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, “is in and out of a coma, “ his brother Abdel Nasser told reporters outside the family home in a posh residential tree-lined street of the Libyan capital.
“His medicine was looted but he has new supplies now, “ said Abdel Nasser, who came out to speak to journalists who had massed outside the family home in the Dimashq neighbourhood.
Earlier, the CNN news network quoted Mr Megrahi’s son Khaled as saying his father is “surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip “ under the care of his family.
“We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice, “ Khaled told the US broadcaster.
“There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don’t have any phone line to call anybody.”
It was not immediately possible to independently confirm Mr Megrahi’s condition as journalists were not allowed to enter the house.
When asked if the bomber was indeed in a coma, spokesman for the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC), Mahmud Shammam, replied “We don’t know. “
Mr Megrahi was said to have only three months to live when he was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds on August 20, 2009.
He had served just eight years of a minimum 27-year sentence for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.
Abdel Nasser said a doctor had examined his brother late on Sunday and that a medical report was e-mailed to the Scottish authorities about Mr Megrahi’s condition, which he called “extremely critical”.
“He cannot eat. He can barely breathe, “ he said, adding that the doctor made no comments on Mr Megrahi’s life expectancy.
“We are regularly in contact with Scottish authorities, “ he said.
Scottish officials in charge of overseeing Mr Megrahi’s parole confirmed yesterday that contact had been established with his family.
“Over the course of the weekend, there has been contact through Mr Al-Megrahi’s family, “ said a joint statement from the government and East Renfrewshire Council.
“There was no evidence of a breach of his licence conditions, and his medical condition is consistent with someone suffering from terminal prostate cancer. “
It added: “As has always been said, Al-Megrahi is dying of a terminal disease, and matters regarding his medical condition should really be left there.”
The job to keep tabs on Mr Megrahi fell to East Renfrewshire Council because his family had a home in the area.
His parole conditions include informing council officials before changing address in Libya, providing a monthly medical report, and not travelling outside Libya without the council’s permission, according to his release agreement.
Mr Megrahi made his first public appearance in nearly two years in July at a gathering in Tripoli in support of embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The fact that he has survived so long has provoked indignation in Britain and the United States, where some politicians have urged the NTC to extradite him.
But Mr Megrahi’s brother Abdel Nasser said he was not particularly concerned about the change of power in Tripoli, adding that the NTC official in charge of legal affairs “is an old friend of the family. “
“The revolutionaries are Libyan and all the Libyans know that he is innocent, “ Abdel Nasser said.