Expert says Lockerbie bomber can live for three more years with medical help

London, Aug.17 (ANI): Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi could remain alive for at least three more years, if not more, with medical help, a prostate cancer specialist said on Monday.

Al Megrahi is currently receiving chemotherapy in Libya for terminal prostate cancer

Consultant urologist Professor Roger Kirby said new treatments mean patients can live for much longer than in the past. He said chemotherapy has been known to extend the lives of patients by up to three years.

The Scotsman quoted the professor at St. George's Hospital in London, as saying: "There are new therapies coming in all the time. There's chemotherapy which al-Megrahi is on in Libya, there are other new things . . . these are improving survival rates on these patients really quite dramatically, so it was a big mistake to let him out on the premise that he would be dead within three months."

He added: "We know that patients can survive 18, 24, 36 months longer as a result of these treatments. It may be that newer treatments coming in now will extend that life expectancy even longer, so the longer Mr al-Megrahi lives, the more embarrassing it is that he has been released from jail."

"He should have received that chemotherapy in jail, not back in Libya, I think," Dr. Kirby said.

Megrahi was convicted of the mass murder of 270 people after the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103. Jailed in 2001, he was released from Greenock Prison on August 20, 2009 after his diagnosis of terminal cancer. (ANI)