Mystery as Lockerbie bomber goes missing from home and hospital

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Times. It reads in part:]

Mystery surrounded the Lockerbie bomber last night after he could not be reached at his home or in hospital.

Libyan officials could say nothing about the whereabouts of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, and his Scottish monitors could not contact him by telephone. They will try again to speak to him today but if they fail to reach him, the Scottish government could face a new crisis.

Under the terms of his release from jail, the bomber cannot change his address or leave Tripoli, and must keep in regular communication with East Renfrewshire Council.

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic and relatives of the 270 people who died in the 1988 bombing expressed anger about al-Megrahi’s disappearance. (...)

On Sunday evening The Times called at the bomber’s home in suburban Tripoli. A policeman sitting on a plastic chair outside was asked to deliver a message to al-Megrahi. He spoke no English, but indicated that al-Megrahi was not there.

The next day The Times visited the Tripoli Medical Centre where alMegrahi was treated soon after his return to Libya. The receptionists said he had left the hospital some time ago.

Back at al-Megrahi’s home, there was no sign of activity. One of three security officers sitting in a grey Mercedes car outside said: “They’ve all gone.” He refused to elaborate.

Alerted by The Times, Jonathan Hinds, of East Renfrewshire Council, tried to telephone al-Megrahi at his home yesterday. He spoke to a Libyan man who said al-Megrahi was too ill to speak to him. (...)

It is entirely possible that al-Megrahi was too ill to speak. Libyan doctors have sent monthly reports on his health to Scottish officials, but these have been kept private. Al-Megrahi has not been seen in public since September 9, when he briefly met a delegation of African politicians at the Tripoli Medical Centre. He was in a wheelchair, said nothing and coughed repeatedly. Observers said he looked frail. His older brother, Mohammed, has told The Times that al-Megrahi had been examined by Italian cancer specialists and that he was receiving his fourth dose of chemotherapy. He asked that he be left alone.

Tony Kelly, al-Megrahi’s Scottish lawyer, refused to discuss his client, and the British Embassy in Tripoli had no comment, but other British sources were adamant that al-Megrahi was terminally ill.

Even so, Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, called for an immediate investigation. He said: “This is outrageous and there will be intense anger that Britain’s biggest mass murderer appears to be able to disappear.”

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died on Pan Am Flight 103, said: “I’d certainly wish to know what is happening to him. This is a demonstration of how it is almost impossible to keep tabs on him — but he could also be seriously ill, so that must not be ruled out.”

[In a further article Sam Lister, The Times's Health Editor, writes:]

The apparent disappearance of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi poses several questions about his health. When examined by British doctors earlier in the year, he had all the features of aggressive prostate cancer. The tumour was described as “stage 4”, meaning it had spread to other parts of his body, and his PSA count (an indicator of cancer spread) was continuing to rise. His PSA levels had dropped briefly the previous year, after he had responded to hormone therapy, but since then had shown all the signs of continuing deterioration. It was on this evidence that he was given a speculative survival time of three or four months.

Back in Tripoli, he was put on a course of chemotherapy involving the drug docetaxol, which is given in three or one-week cycles. That he appears not to have attended hospital in many weeks suggests that treatment may have ended, or that it has been stopped because no further benefit could be gained.

This would suggest that he may be on palliative care, and in the final stages of the disease. He may be on a morphine drip away from hospital, he could be semi-conscious at home, or he could have sought somewhere else to spend his final days, away from the noise of Tripoli. Or he may have left for less obvious reasons.

Predicting cancer survival is not an exact science. That the cancer was continuing to spread quickly does point to a poor outcome. But about a third of men with advanced prostate cancer live for at least five years after diagnosis.

Al-Megrahi is younger than the average sufferer at stage 4 and the same type of cancer can grow at different rates in different people. What can be said with some certainty, however, is that a prolonged stay away from hospital is unlikely to be a positive sign.