Lockerbie bomber hunger strike denied

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- The Scottish Prison Service has denied reports the Libyan secret agent convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has gone on hunger strike.

A lawyer for Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, 49, said on Wednesday that the Libyan intelligence agent had begun refusing food the day before.

But a Scottish prison service spokesman, although conceding he may have missed a meal on Wednesday, said: "He's not on hunger strike. There is a long way between turning down a meal or two and being on hunger strike."

Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment last Wednesday for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, which killed 270 people.

Judges recommended he serve a minimum of 20 years in a Scottish prison. His co-accused, Libyan Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.

He is still in a special jail at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands where he is to stay until the legal process has been exhausted.

His defence lawyers have lodged an intention to appeal against his conviction for mass murder.

Stephen Mitchell, a lawyer who had originally acted for Megrahi and who first met him in Libya in 1991, had claimed the convicted man had become depressed and gone on hunger strike.

"I have been told by the defence team that he has started a hunger strike," Mitchell said. "But the defence team and the doctors are trying to dissuade him and tell him the right course is to pursue his appeal."

Alistair Duff, who heads Megrahi's Edinburgh-based defence team, declined to comment. Having lodged an intention to appeal with the Scottish High Court, Megrahi's lawyers have six weeks to come up with full written grounds for an appeal.

A High Court judge will then decide whether or not to allow an appeal and schedule a full hearing if leave is granted -- likely to be in the second half of the year.

Mitchell added: "I think he is very, very depressed. I don't doubt for a minute that he thought there was no evidence against him. Back in 1992 he made it clear to me he was ready to go for trial outside Libya."

Megrahi has been held at Camp Zeist, the former U.S. military base, since surrendering in April 1999. A cell dubbed the "Gadhafi Cafe" -- after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi -- has been prepared for him in Scotland's biggest prison, Barlinnie jail in Glasgow.

Three Scottish judges sitting in Camp Zeist said they accepted that Al-Megrahi, whom they called a senior figure in Libyan intelligence, sent the bomb in an unaccompanied suitcase from Malta.

Megrahi maintained his innocence throughout the nine-month trial.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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