Lockerbie bomber receives 11 litres of blood

The family of Lockerbie bomber Abdulbasit al-Megrahi said yesterday that he had received 11 litres of blood in an emergency transfusion.

The former Libyan intelligence officer, who is suffering from advanced prostate cancer, was taken to a hospital just outside Triploli on Friday night after his health deteriorated; he received the transfusion overnight. His brother Abdulhakim said the family had had to ask volunteers to donate blood because the hospital did not have enough.

In 2001, Al-Megrahi was convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people. He was freed by the Scottish government in 2009 on compassionate grounds amid reports he only had months to live.