[This is the headline over a report in The Times of 16 February. It reads in part:]
The council charged with monitoring the health of the Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi has refused to publish details of his medical condition, angering families of his victims.
Al-Megrahi, East Renfrewshire Council has claimed, has a right to confidentiality and should be treated like any other former prisoner. (...)
Six months [after his release], opposition MSPs, have been calling for evidence that al-Megrahi is close to death, but East Renfrewshire Council said yesterday that monthly reports they receive from Libya about his health, used to update the Scottish government, were confidential — just as they would be for any other criminal they were supervising.
A council spokesman said: “They are private and confidential medical reports and we won’t be releasing them. We wouldn’t release medical reports for any client and he, despite the circumstances and international background, is a criminal justice client like any other.”
He added that al-Megrahi had satisfied to date the conditions attached to his release, namely that he stays in regular contact — usually twice a month, but there is no specific timescale identified in his release licence — and does not leave Libya. The Times understands that al-Megrahi is staying at his home in Tripoli, where he is receiving palliative care.
Bill Aitken, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “It is almost bizarre to suggest that the biggest mass murderer in Scottish history should be just like any other client. He is not. The public have a right to know what is going on.”
Why is nobody agitating for the release of Ronnie Biggs's medical records? Given the notoriety, and the fact that I don't even recall a clear diagnosis of a specific terminal disease, it seems reasonably comparable. And he was released before Megrahi.
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