Meeting Lockerbie bomber Megrahi on his sickbed

It’s been one of those days that feels like a month. I can hardly remember this morning. This afternoon will stay with me though.

At 4.30pm I met the Lockerbie bomber.

It looked to me as though Abdel Basset al-Megrahi wasn’t long for this world. If he was going to face sentencing “by a higher power,” I wanted to get in there first and fast. 

His release on compassionate grounds denied him his chance to clear his name in court.  He maintained his innocence, but he’d go down in history as the man who killed 270 people on a Pan Am Jumbo. 

If he really was dying, this might be his very last chance to speak to the world.

But as I was soon to discover, Mr al-Megrahi really was dying. I think.

The phonecall from the family came out of the blue.  “Come now,” they said. “Central Hospital.”

Looking back now, our reaction was faintly ludicrous. First of all, this didn’t seem likely, as we’d been stalking Mr al-Megrahi outside his fortress-like home half the morning.

You’d have thought they might have been sick of the British TV crew hovering around the front gate like fruit flies. But we had obviously talked to the right people.

Then there was the problem that we were actually half way through editing our report for Channel 4 News that night.

If we were going have to break off, dash across Tripoli (or more likely get jammed in traffic) on the off chance that we really would get to see him, then dash back with our unlikely scoop…well, there was the distinct possibility we really would miss our satellite feed. 

We had to think about it. 

But not for long.

“Go, go, go!” our programme editor shouted down the phone. Edit in suspended animation, we grabbed the camera and charged for the lift.

The Libyan capital was just waking from its afternoon Ramadan siesta and the roads were mercifully clear. 

I planned out my questions as we raced down wide avenues, hung with vast portraits of Brother Leader Muammar Gaddafi, Guide of the Revolution, King of Kings.

Our world exclusive would involve a searching interrogation and cross-examination of the Lockerbie bomber.

Arriving at the hospital, armed police amazingly waved us through barriers; we were escorted into the private wing. This really was happening. 

In an anti-chamber with oversized faux-leather armchairs, under a monstrous flat screen TV showing looped images of Gaddafi’s heroic revolutionary exploits, we waited. 

Khaled, the bomber’s friendly 22-year-old son walked in; followed by Mohammed, his son-in-law. He had a tartan strip on his shirt collar.  “I spent a long time in Scotland,” he said.

“You will have to be fast,” he added, in perfect English.  “He is very sick. Very tired. Oh, and no questions.”

No questions?  What?

I followed Mohammed down the corridor, past the policeman on the door and into the darkened room, where in the green gloaming, the convicted bomber lay propped up by pillows, gasping and rasping into an oxygen mask. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was clearly not at all well. 

I stood for a moment taking in the scene.

If this was stage-managed to make it look like al-Megrahi wasn’t long for this world, it was pretty convincing.

Family loitering around the bedside, Mrs al-Megrahi in a black cloak and hijab, looking teary – looking like she was already in mourning. 

It was like a scene from an oil painting of man on deathbed.

There was the big picture of the Colonel on the wall above, the Koran beside him. And al-Megrahi himself just lay there, literally croaking as monitors beeped and drips dripped.

I asked my question anyway and felt awkward to doing so; there was no answer; there would be no answers.

This was all we were ever meant to see. The message was the message. 

Al-Megrahi was dying; he’d take his secrets with him to the grave; Libya would move on. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi would no longer be have to be haunted by the inconvenient ghosts of the past. 

We raced back across town, returned to our edit and started all over again. Faster this time.  And with a greater sense of purpose.

It was a convincing deathbed scene, no doubt about it.  The only thing that niggles is the salad. I was standing outside the door of the dying man’s room, hoping he might suddenly recover sufficiently to answer those questions.

A hospital orderly in blue approached.  “Excuse me, please,” He opened the door and walked in with a trayful of couscous, tomato salad and plump Libyan olives.

I wondered if Mr al-Megrahi might have worked up a bit of an appetite.