US relatives pleased at Lockerbie bomber's death

WASHINGTON: Several relatives of US citizens killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing said on Sunday they were pleased that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted of the attack, had died.

Megrahi, 60, who was suffering from prostate cancer died shortly after 1 pm (1100 GMT), almost three years after being freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds.

The explosion that downed Pan Am flight 103, which was bound for New York, above Lockerbie, a southern Scottish town, killed all 259 passengers -- 189 of them Americans -- and 11 people on the ground.

Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora was one of the victims, said Megrahi, did not deserve the comfort of dying with his relatives at his side.

"He deserved to die," Cohen, who lives in New Jersey, told CNN. "He was a mass murderer. I feel no pity around him. He got to die with his family around him. My daughter, at age 20, died a brutal, horrible death."

Barbara Zwynenburg of West Nyack, New York, whose 29-year-old son Mark died aboard the plane, told CNN on Sunday: "It's about time. I'm glad he's dead."

Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison but was released in 2009, a decision that angered victims families and caused a rift between Scotland's devolved Edinburgh government and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, relying on doctors' reports that said Megrahi probably had three months to live, allowed him to travel home to Libya where he was welcomed as a hero, further fueling the row over his release.

Zwynenburg said the hurt caused by the bomber's release continued to rankle and the decision had been a disgrace.

"He was supposed to be ill and was allegedly ready to die," she told CNN. "He went home to his family, and our son never came home."

Bert Ammerman, whose 36-year-old brother Tommy died in the blast, said he was "pleased and relieved," that Megrahi was dead.

"This man was responsible for blowing people out of the air at 39,000 feet," Ammerman told Fox News, reminding viewers that some of the victims suffered by being alive the entire time that the aircraft plummeted to the ground.

"When he was released, that was the most angry I was in the 24-year saga.

"That was a despicable act. The act of compassion was when he got life in prison. When he was released in 2009, it was an act of betrayal for our government and the British government for oil and big business," he said.

The reaction from US families notably differed from Jim Swire, the father of a British victim of the bombing who campaigned for Megrahi's release believing him to be innocent, who said he felt sad over the bomber's death.

A Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicted Megrahi of the bombing which sent debris from the jet raining down on Lockerbie, a town of only a few thousand people situated around 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of Edinburgh. (AFP)