US investigators must have access to convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi in Libya to assess his health and question him about the attack, a key senator urged yesterday.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez called on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) rebels against longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s rule to let US officials see Mr Megrahi.

“It has always been known that he did not act alone,” Mr Menendez said in a letter to Ms Clinton urging immediate access to assess the cancer-stricken Mr Megrahi’s health and to question him “if and when feasible.”

Mr Megrahi is the only person convicted for the in-flight bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 bombing in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

But “we still do not know who ordered the bombing, who collected the intelligence to carry out the plan, who made the bomb and who – in addition to Mr Megrahi – bears responsibility for this and other heinous attacks,” said Mr Menendez.