Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, Lockerbie Bomber, Dies at 60 Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 bombing of an American jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, has died in Libya, family members told news agencies on Sunday, nearly three years after Scotland released him on humanitarian grounds, citing evidence that he was near death with metastatic prostate cancer. He was 60. The death of Mr. Megrahi, who insisted that he was not guilty, foreclosed a fuller accounting of his role, and perhaps that of the Libyan government under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, in the midair explosion of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. A former Libyan intelligence officer who worked undercover at Libya's national airline, Mr. Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of orchestrating the bombing and was sentenced to life in prison, with a 27-year minimum. But after doctors said he was likely to die within three months, he was freed in 2009 under a Scottish law providing for compassionate release of prisoners with terminal illnesses. Cheering crowds greeted his return to Libya, escorted by Colonel Qaddafi's son Saif al-Islam in a grim propaganda coup. His release infuriated many families of the bombing victims, touched off angry protests in Britain and the United States and was condemned by President Obama and other Western leaders, including Britain's Conservative opposition after Gordon Brown, who was then the prime minister, waffled. Critics charged that Mr. Megrahi's release had been a part of Libyan oil and gas deals with Britain. A British cabinet official said that he and the prime minister had discussed Mr. Megrahi with Colonel Qaddafi's son at a European economic conference, but denied there had been any deal for his release. After being treated at Tripoli's most advanced cancer center, Mr. Megrahi lived with his family at a villa in Tripoli at the government's expense. As civil war engulfed Libya in 2011, Western calls for his return to prison increased, especially after Colonel Qaddafi was overthrown and later killed by revolutionary forces. Tripoli's new leaders refused to return him. But, under international pressure, they signaled a willingness to get to the bottom of the Lockerbie case, still unresolved after nearly a quarter of a century of struggle among nations and investigations that spanned the globe, touching on Iranians, Syrians, Palestinians and Libyans. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the United States would continue "toward a full accounting of Qaddafi's horrific acts." "Megrahi's death concludes an unfortunate chapter following his release from prison in 2009 on medical grounds - a move we strongly opposed," Mr. Vietor said. As we have long said, we want to see justice for the victims of the Lockerbie bombing and their families. The enigmatic Mr. Megrahi had been the central figure of the case for decades, reviled as a terrorist but defended by many Libyans, and even some world leaders, as a victim of injustice whose trial, 12 years after the bombing, had been riddled with political overtones, memory gaps and flawed evidence. Abdel Basset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was born in Tripoli, Libya, on April 1, 1952. Little is known in the West about his early life. He had a good command of English, and he studied in Cardiff, Wales, for nine months in 1971, then made four or five trips each to the United States and Britain in the late 1970s. Mr. Megrahi and his wife, Aisha, were married in 1982 and had four sons and a daughter. His first cousin was Sa'id Rashid, a senior officer of Jamahiriya el-Mukhabarat, the Libyan intelligence service, and a member of Colonel Qaddafi's inner circle. Mr. Megrahi was also a senior intelligence officer and director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Tripoli. American intelligence officials said he became chief of security for Libyan Arab Airlines as a cover for his secret work as a military procurer, enabling him to travel widely, often using aliases and false passports. As tensions between the United States and Libya mounted in the 1980s, prosecutors said, Mr. Megrahi was enlisted for an act of terrorism. It was to be the worst in British history, and a devastating strike against America. On Dec. 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747 jet carrying 243 passengers and 16 crew members, took off from Heathrow Airport in Britain, bound for New York. Little more than a half-hour later, cruising at 31,000 feet over southern Scotland, the plane exploded. All 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground were killed. The terrorists apparently intended the aircraft to fall into the sea. But because it took off late, victims and debris fell on the town of Lockerbie. Evidence that was recovered showed that the plane had been blown up by Semtex plastic and a Swiss timing device of a kind sold to the Libyan military. The bomb had been hidden in a Toshiba cassette player and placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase, with clothing that was traced to a merchant in Malta. Investigators, while they had no direct proof, believed that the suitcase with the bomb had been fitted with routing tags for baggage handlers, put on a plane at Malta and flown to Frankfurt, where it was loaded onto a Boeing 727 feeder flight that connected to Flight 103 at London, then transferred to the doomed jetliner.