Scottish priest Father Patrick Keegans who served at Lockerbie, Scotland, at the time of the terrorist attack on the Pan Am airliner has welcomed the release from jail of the only person convicted over it. Fr Keegans said he was "delighted" by the August 20 release of Abdelbaset Mohmed Al Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, the Catholic News Service reported.
Megrahi was jailed in 2002 for a minimum of 27 years for the December 21, 1988, bombing that killed 270 people.
He was released by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds after physicians confirmed his prostate cancer was at an advanced stage and he had only months to live. He returned to Libya on August 20.
The decision has angered relatives of the victims and was described as a "mistake" by US President Barack Obama.
Fr Keegans, 63, a priest of the Diocese of Galloway, who has visited Megrahi in prison believes an "innocent man has gone home from Scotland."
"I am very pleased that the Scottish government has agreed to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds," said the priest said.
"He is a dying man and the best way to deal with him is in a true and proper fashion as a human being and let him die at home with his family and friends," he said.
Fr Keegans said he befriended many families of the American victims.
"The American families have always known that I believe Megrahi is innocent. They find it hard that I have spoken out for Megrahi and argued that he should be released on compassionate grounds. I have said that irrespective of the guilt he should be released home on compassionate grounds," he added.
Fr Keegans visited Megrahi in prison days after returning from a Lockerbie memorial event in the US in December 2008.
"After speaking with him I was more convinced than ever of his innocence," he said. "He spoke about his trial, how the trial had gone and how a UN official observer had said to him three days before the verdict that he was going home. Imagine how he felt when he was convicted.
"He spoke of his respect for Christianity and how he read the Bible every day and the Quran every day. He spoke of his desire to clear his name. He said, 'I want the tag of the Lockerbie bomber to be removed; I want to clear my name.'"
Megrahi, 57, lost his first appeal against conviction and launched a second appeal after a 2007 review of his case by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found that there might have been a miscarriage of justice.
In a statement issued August 20, Megrahi maintained his innocence but said he dropped his appeal after he was "faced with an appalling choice: to risk dying in prison in the hope that my name is cleared posthumously or to return home still carrying the weight of the guilty verdict, which will never now be lifted."
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