(Image source: CNN)
BY TRACY PFEIFFER
ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY
You're watching multisource world news analysis from Newsy.
The rebels’ National Transitional Council has denied calls for the extradition of Abdel al-Megrahi, better known as the Lockerbie bomber.
Megrahi is the only person convicted in the plane bombing that killed 270 passengers, crew, and townspeople in Scotland.
British authorities released him from prison in 2009 after doctors gave him three months to live. His diagnosis? Prostate cancer. (Video: Fox News)
But two years later, Megrahi is still alive.
Scottish officials kept tabs on him, but lost contact during the uprising against ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Then-- CNN reporter Nic Robertson located the convicted bomber-- in a Tripoli mansion.
Here’s what he found.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN: “Megrahi apparently in a coma, his aging mother at his side.”
KALED ELMEGARHI, SON: “We just give him oxygen and nobody give us advice. And some food by injection. If you see, his body is weak.”
ROBERTSON: “He appears to be just a shell of the man he was, far sicker than he appeared before.”
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was among the loudest voices calling for Megrahi’s extradition to stand trial again-- but as Fox News’ Steve Harrigan explains, the NTC has taken that idea off the table.
STEVE HARRIGAN, FOX NEWS: “Right now, ministers in this new transitional government says they will not turn over al-Megrahi for extradition. The new justice minister here saying, he was judged once, he was set free, he will not be sent abroad to be judged a second time.”
CNN’s Robertson had hoped to ask Megrahi for more details about the bombing-- like who knew, who helped, and who within the Libyan government might have ordered it.
But he acknowledges-- that’s unlikely. (Video: CNN)
The New York Times reports-- Megrahi’s failing health could have both good and bad consequences.
“Mr. Megrahi’s death would end the possibility of eliciting his full account of the Libyan government’s role in the bombing... But it would also remove a potentially serious point of friction between the rebels’ Transitional National Council and its Western backers.”
And that-- was a point of contention for the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC: “I still want to know what the British government and the U.S. government knew about his release.”
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC: “Oh. Oh, everything.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Because we have been so lied to. By the British. By the Americans.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Please. Oil.”
SCARBOROUGH: “We have been lied to. This is the biggest scam. They knew about it. There were nods and winks. And it’s gonna come out.”
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