Sky News and BBC television reported on Wednesday that Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was to be freed from his Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, but the minister in charge of deciding al-Megrahi’s fate denied that any such decision had been made.
Neither news network cited a source for its report.
Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, who was due to decide whether to release al-Megrahi, told a local television station he had yet to make up his mind. A call and an e-mail sent to al-Megrahi’s Scottish lawyer were not immediately returned late on Wednesday.
“The decision will be made next week,” MacAskill told Scottish Television late on Wednesday.
Two spokeswomen for the Scottish government dismissed the BBC and Sky reports as speculation.
“Absolutely no decision has been taken on that,” a spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said. “Categorically no decision has been made at this stage.”
A second spokeswoman noted that MacAskill had yet to review all the information about the case.
“The bottom line is that the Justice Secretary, Mr MacAskill, is still awaiting evidence,” she said. “He has not made that decision.”
Both officials spoke anonymously in line with Scottish government policy.
Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan secret service agent, is serving a life sentence for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988. The attack killed 270 people — most of them Americans. He is terminally ill with cancer and his legal team has sought his release on compassionate grounds in the past. A separate request has also been made to have him serve out his sentence in a Libyan jail.
The BBC said al-Megrahi’s release was influenced by the hope that he could be back on Libyan soil in time for Ramadan next week.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS