Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi is either a mass murderer or a man who has been wrongly imprisoned in a jail far away from his family home for the past eight years. And the ecstatic welcome he received in Libya when he stepped off one of Muammar Gaddafi's private jets was either an exercise in severe bad taste or justified celebration to mark the end of a nation's condemnation for a terrorist act it did not commit.
If it is unfortunate for the world that it does not know which, it is a tragedy upon a tragedy for the families of the 270 victims - the large majority of whom were American - who perished when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.
Worse is that we are unlikely to get to know, since, apparently to help secure his release on compassionate grounds - Mr Al-Megrahi has been given three months to live as he has advanced prostate cancer - the 57-year-old Libyan has abandoned his appeal against the conviction.
This has led to a wholly unsatisfactory situation, splitting even families of the victims. While the large majority of Americans see the Libyan as a murderer who should not have been shown an ounce of compassion since he displayed none, a spokesman for Scottish relatives, Jim Swire, believes Mr Al-Megrahi had "absolutely nothing to do with" the incident.
The only thing we do know for certain is that he was the only person to be convicted of carrying out the bombing.
This because three Scottish judges, who heard the case at The Hague in 2001, accepted the prosecution case that the evidence pointed overwhelmingly to the Libyan since he had purchased clothes in Malta that were wrapped around the bomb - which was then placed by him on an Air Malta aircraft bound for Frankfurt, from where a feeder flight took it to the departing Pan Am jumbo in London.
Although no official ever attached any blame to Malta, its airline or its airport - in his autobiography the then Home Affairs Minister Guido de Marco even highlights that the British Foreign Minister at the time had sent a letter to thank our government for the help it extended to the British investigating team - it is still undesirable that our country is in any way associated with an act of this nature.
The government's position then was that it was unconvinced that the link to an Air Malta flight was credible, and this remains the position of the Nationalist administration today.
Furthermore, questions have persistently been raised about the reliability of the evidence given by the Maltese man, Tony Gauci, who told international investigators that Mr Al-Megrahi bought the clothes from his shop in Sliema.
Although Mr Al-Megrahi told yesterday's The Times of London in a brief interview that before he dies he will present new evidence through his Scottish lawyers that will exonerate him, he refused to elaborate on what that is. And in any case, his pronouncements are unlikely to resolve the issue. Only the strict standards and procedures of a court could do that.
Mr Al-Megrahi also told his interviewer that the Arabs have a saying: "The truth never dies". But he will. Soon. And any hope of getting to the bottom of the Lockerbie bombing is likely to perish with him.