A father who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing said yesterday he was concerned for the safety of the man convicted of the atrocity as he announced he was stepping down from frontline campaigning.

Jim Swire, who has been a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, which represented British relatives, said he was concerned US special forces could kill Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

Mr Megrahi, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer, was released from a Scottish prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds, after serving nearly eight years of a 27-year sentence for killing 270 people.

Of those, 259 victims were on Pan Am Flight 103, with 11 residents killed by falling wreckage after it exploded over Lockerbie, in Dumfries and Galloway, on December 21, 1988. Dr Swire’s daughter Flora was killed in the bombing.

The former GP, who lives in Chipping Campden and believes Mr Megrahi is innocent, said: “I am worried for him. I can just see the unit they sent to kill Osama bin Laden being sent to extract Mr Megrahi.

“Presumably, they wouldn’t extract him but kill him on the spot.”

Dr Swire said he was stepping down from frontline campaigning as a group of British lawyers, including QCs, were keen to look at evidence from Mr Megrahi’s trial. “There’s a whole cohort of senior lawyers who are keen to get involved,” he added.

Dr Swire also said the emergence of the Justice For Megrahi campaign group was another reason for his decision.

Dr Swire continued: “Both I and my family feel it’s time to leave it to younger hands.

“Right from day one we felt that we wanted to try and force something good to come out of something so evil as this.

“In the early years that took the form of hoping to improve relations between Libya and Britain and that did seem to be working.”