Court considers early release for ill Lockerbie bomber

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A Scottish court is considering releasing convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi because he is suffering from advanced prostate cancer, a court spokeswoman says.

The spokeswoman for the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, Scotland, said the court would not make a decision Thursday.

A three-judge panel at the court heard earlier Thursday an appeal from Megrahi's lawyers asking that he be freed.

Megrahi is currently serving a life sentence in Scotland's Greenock Prison for his role in the December 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. The bombing killed 270 people, including 11 on the ground.

Under Scottish law, prisoners with less than three months to live may be freed early on compassionate grounds. Megrahi's lawyer, Tony Kelly, confirmed his client's cancer diagnosis last month.

Megrahi was convicted of the bombing in January 2001. A Scottish court ruled in 2003 that he must serve at least 27 years of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

A separate appeal of his conviction is pending. If the judges decide to free Megrahi now because of his medical condition, it would officially be considered "interim liberation" while his other appeal waits to be heard, a prosecution spokeswoman said.

Megrahi was convicted after the prosecution argued he had placed the bomb, hidden in a suitcase, on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, Germany. There, prosecutors said, the bomb was transferred onto the Pan Am plane that went first to London's Heathrow airport and then was to continue to New York.

Another man -- Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima -- was also tried in the bombing but was acquitted.

The prosecution maintained that Megrahi, who worked at Malta's Luqa Airport, was an agent for the Libyan intelligence services and had been seen buying clothes that were in the suitcase which contained the bomb.

Libya has formally accepted responsibility for the bombing, though Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi later denied it.

Last week Libya completed a $1.5 billion payment to the families of victims of several terrorist attacks, including the Lockerbie bombing.

The payment ended Tripoli's legal liability in U.S. terrorism cases and ended the remaining roadblock to full relations with the United States, the State Department said.

Under the payment plan, Libya paid more than $500 million to settle remaining claims from the Lockerbie case. Libya had agreed to pay each of the 268 families involved in the case $10 million each, but until last week it had withheld part of the money in a dispute over U.S. obligations to Libya.