Doctor: Lockerbie Bomber Could Live Another 10 Years

LONDON (July 5) -- A British cancer specialist who predicted that the Libyan convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing would die within three months of his release from jail now says that the man could survive for another decade.

The Scottish government released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi from jail on compassionate grounds last August, after being told by doctors that his prostate cancer was terminal. That decision angered the U.S. and many relatives of those killed in the attack, who argued Megrahi should end his days in prison.

Megrahi was convicted of 270 counts of murder for masterminding the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie.

Dr. Karol Sikora, who assessed Megrahi for the Libyan authorities a year ago, told The Sunday Times that it was "embarrassing" and "unusual" that the bomber had not yet succumbed to the disease. "There is always a chance that he would live for 10 years ... but it's very unusual," Sikora told the Sunday Times. "There was a 50 percent chance that he would die in three months, but there was also a 50 percent chance that he would live longer."

However, the Times reported that Sikora, dean of medicine at Buckingham University in southeast England, was the only oncologist Libyan authorities could find who was prepared to place such a short estimate on Megrahi's survival. It noted that diagnoses offered by two other experts saying that Megrahi could live for up to 19 months was ignored.

Sikora told the newspaper that the Libyan government had informed him that if he came to the conclusion that Megrahi was likely to die before the end of 2009, it would likely improve his chances of being returned to his homeland. "It was clear that three months was what they were aiming for," he said. "On the balance of probabilities, I felt I could sort of justify [that]."

However, Sikora adamantly denied that he had come under pressure to alter his diagnosis. "I really thought he would die much sooner than he has. All indications were that the disease was progressing rapidly," he told the Daily Mail. "It would have been very convenient if he had died within three months but he hasn't and I will have to live with that."

Sikora's announcement was greeted with anger by some of the families of the 270 people killed in the atrocity. "It's outrageous," Eileen Monetti, from New Jersey, whose 20-year-old son Rick was on the Pan Am flight, told The Sun newspaper. "His release was obviously rigged."

But Dr. Jim Swire, a British general practitioner who lost his daughter Flora in the attack, said that he wasn't surprised Megrahi has outlived Sikora's expectations.

"I can't really find any fault with him because all doctors can do is work around an average for people with an illness at a particular stage," Swire told the Scottish newspaper The Herald. "What happened to al-Megrahi was that he was returned to his family, which reduces stress, and stress also decides how well your immune system fights the cancer."

Megrahi's family has also dismissed the idea that he could survive for another decade.

"He is almost certainly on his death bed. He is extremely sick, and surgeons stopped operating long ago," said an unnamed relative cited by The Mirror. "The cancer has since spread to his kidneys, liver, pelvis and lymph nodes. There is very little chance of him reaching August."