Lockerbie Bomber Says His Role Was "Exaggerated"

Two years later and Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is still alive.

The man convicted of the 1998 Lockerbie gave his latest interview Monday to Reuters, saying that his role in the bombing that killed 270 was “exaggerated.”

“The facts will become clear one day and hopefully in the near future,” he said in an interview from his Libyan home. “In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced.”

He added: "The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months."

Al-Megrahi was released from the Scottish prison where he was serving a life sentence in 2009 and returned to Libya after doctors who had been treating him for prostate cancer gave him three months to live. Libya’s new government, the National Transitional Council, has resisted calls from the West for al-Megrahi to be returned to prison and has said that the case is closed.

Here’s how Reuters describes al-Megrahi’s current condition:

Al-Megrahi lay propped at a slight angle in a hospital-style bed. An oxygen tank stood nearby, but he did not use an oxygen mask during the interview. Members of his family were in the room with him.

Unshaven, he wore a checked shirt and had a white headdress wrapped loosely around his head.

In late August, CNN reported that al-Megrahi was “comatose, near death and likely to take secrets of the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 to his grave.”