And there are others who
believe that Megrahi, who died on Sunday from cancer, was not
responsible for bringing down the jet over Scotland in 1988, including
some of the victims' families.
Why does the tragedy continue to raise questions? CNN examines the issues.
Why was al Megrahi convicted?
After a nine-month trial
that concluded in January 2001, a Scottish court based in a former U.S.
base at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, convicted al Megrahi of the
murders and he was sentenced to life in prison with the condition that
he serve at least 27 years before being eligible for parole. Scotland
does not have the death penalty.
The trial followed years
of negotiation with Libya, after British and American investigators
indicted two men for the crime in 1991.
The U.S. and UK blamed
both al Megrahi, who was once security chief for Libyan Arab Airlines,
and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah -- accusing them both of being Libyan
intelligence agents.
Libya eventually handed
over both men to the United Nations in 1999 and later paid $2.7 billion
to victims' families. Sanctions against Moammar Gadhafi's regime were
lifted on the same day the men were taken into custody.
At al Megrahi's trial,
prosecutors said he placed a bomb in a Toshiba cassette recorder and hid
it in suitcase on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, Germany. The bag
was believed to have been transferred to a Pan Am flight that went first
to London Heathrow and then to Flight 103 to New York.
The prosecution
maintained that al Megrahi, who worked at the Malta airport, had been
seen buying clothes, fragments of which were found in the suitcase that
contained the bomb.
Al Megrahi was found guilty but Fhimah was acquitted.
Many of the victim's
families believe the right man was convicted and expressed a mixture of
relief on hearing of al Megrahi's death and anger that he had been
released from his sentence.
Susan Cohen, whose daughter was among the 189 Americans killed, said: "He was a mass murderer. I feel no pity."
Why was he released early?
In August 2009, eight
years after al Megrahi's conviction, there was uproar when Scottish
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced that he would be released
from prison on compassionate grounds because he was suffering from
terminal prostate cancer.
His release -- and the
celebrations that greeted him on his return to Libya -- sparked
condemnation from the United States, and from some victims' families.
Despite being given just
a few months to live, he survived for more than two years, sparking
anger against the Scottish authorities and accusations in the British
press that a deal had been struck with Libya. A group of U.S. senators
then attempted to investigate rumors that the Lockerbie bomber was
released as part of a deal to allow BP to drill for oil off the coast of
Libya.
On Sunday, British Prime
Minister David Cameron reiterated his belief that al Megrahi should
never have been released from prison.
But Scotland's First
Minister Alex Salmond said al Megrahi's death put to rest "some of the
conspiracy theories which have attempted to suggest that his illness was
somehow manufactured."
Why is al Megrahi's guilt questioned?
In an interview with Reuters in 2011 al Megrahi vowed that "new facts" would come to light. He always maintained his innocence.
After al Megrahi lodged
an appeal whilst still in prison, the evidence was reviewed by the
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. New evidence uncovered during
the investigation and other evidence not submitted at al Megrahi's
original trial led the review commission to state that he "may have
suffered a miscarriage of justice." Read More
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