The Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has still not decided whether to abandon his fight to clear his name, an MSP said after visiting him yesterday.
Christine Grahame, SNP member for the south of Scotland, said Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was struggling to make the choice while suffering "severe pain" from prostate cancer.
Libyan authorities have filed an application to have him moved to his home country, but the transfer cannot go ahead while legal proceedings are still ongoing.
Al Megrahi is currently pursuing an appeal against his conviction, but he would have to drop it in order to get back to Africa and see his family.
The 57-year-old, serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 that killed 270 people, is thought unlikely to survive long enough for a second part of the appeal continuing next spring.
After her 90-minute visit to Greenock Prison yesterday afternoon, Ms Grahame said: "He is a man who is in a great quandary about what he should do. He's got this major decision to take at some point.
"Overall I think he is dealing very well with the circumstances he finds himself in.
"He is in severe pain. His health is deteriorating, both his physical and emotional health.
"I think the issue for Mr Megrahi is that he would want the appeal to continue but at the same time he is desperate to see his family."
Ms Grahame is certain that his relatives would press for a public inquiry in the event of his death, she added.
The South of Scotland MSP also spoke of a Dutch TV documentary that she said showed that a key piece of evidence was taken out of Scotland without the proper documentation. The circuit board used as a bomb trigger had been removed to America, she said, undermining the reliability of Al Megrahi's conviction.
"Lord Peter Fraser, who was the Lord Advocate at the time, has said it never left Scotland - so my challenge to the Lord Fraser is, what did the Crown know at the time about that circuit board, what did you know, can you come and tell us and tell the public?" she added.
Lord Fraser declined to comment.
[The above is The Herald's report on Christine Grahame MSP's meeting with Abdelbaset Megrahi on Tuesday, 16 June. The report on the BBC News website can be read here; and that on the Southern Reporter's website here.]
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