Wanted Man

Abdel Basset al-Magrahi, a Libyan convicted of masterminding the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie bombing that killed 259 travelers and 11 people on the ground, is reportedly still living in Tripoli after returning to a hero's welcome in 2009. Released on compassionate grounds by blinkered Scottish authorities because he was supposedly on the verge of death from cancer, Magrahi was giving self-serving interviews to the international media as recently as Oct. 3 of this year.

Magrahi maintains he didn't do it and that the facts about the Lockerbie bombing will soon emerge. A Dutch court disagreed with his profession of innocence, which is how he came to be imprisoned in the first place.

As for the convicted mass-murderer's decrepitude, it should be noted he has been dying any day now for more than two years. A Reuters report published in the British press this month reported that while Magrahi held forth for the media, "An oxygen tank stood nearby, but he did not use an oxygen mask during the interview.''

The Dec. 21, 1988 bombing, one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks on travelers in modern history, numbered among its victims 189 Americans - including 36 students at Syracuse University, my alma mater, who were returning from studies in Britain for their end of the year holidays.

The United States opposed Magrahi's release by Scotland and his return to Libya and is seeking his extradition.

"He does seem to have made a miraculous recovery ... he never should have been let out of jail,'' the Reuters dispatch quotes U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland as saying. "We continue to believe that the right place for Mugrahi is behind bars and we will continue to make that case to the Libyans.''

Good luck with that. The present, hopefully transitionary leaders of Libya demonstrated their commitment to justice and compassion on Thursday in videos showing the beating of the deposed dictator Moammar Khadafy. In an earlier announcement, the victorious rebels - who beat Khadafy on the battlefield thanks to military help from the West, including the U.S. - have said Magrahi will not be extradicted from Libya.

Khadafy's ghost will continue to haunt long-suffering, good-hearted Libyan people in many ways for many years. It will continue to haunt the West, too, especially so long as Abdel Basset al-Megrahi remains at liberty.

23 Years, 270 Deaths, One Dictator

Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy's capture and apparent execution yesterday comes nearly 23 years after agents of his government bombed Pan American World Airways flight 103, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, in late 1988. It was a brutal end for a man ultimately responsible for one of the most vile acts against travelers in the modern era.

His departure does nothing, of course, to erase the pain that lingers after all these years - nor does it offset the celebratory images from Tripoli several years ago, when a Libyan convicted of the crime returned to a hero's welcome after being released from a Scottish jail, supposedly because he was terminally ill. At last report, he was living in a comfortable villa in an upscale section of Tripoli.

That said, images of the dictator's last moments do nothing to inspire confidence that the North African nation will suddenly evolve into a kinder, gentler society. As for the rebel leaders saying the strongman died in a cross fire, their claims seem debatable at best. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? It's easy to see it happening.

Justice

One of the storylines coming out of Libya is a widely disseminated report that the convicted Lockerbie bomber, a Libyan man responsible for destroying Pan American flight 103 over Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, is terminally ill - still.

This is the same person who was released on compassionate medical grounds by Scottish authorities in August 2009 because Scottish doctors gave him only three months to live due to an advanced case of prostate cancer. Today, 24 months after his release, he is apparently still not feeling well. The mass murderer's brother describes him as frail, resting in a villa in what media reports characterize as a wealthy section of Tripoli.

Libyan rebels - who demand justice for themselves at the end of a gun - have rejected extradicting him to Scotland, which has in any case not asked to have him back, despite repeated requests by the United States and the national government of Great Britain that he be sent to a Western prison to serve out his term.

Pan Am flight 103's destruction accounted for one of the darkest days in the modern history of travel. All 259 passengers and crew perished in the explosion, as did 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. Two-thirds of the victims were Americans, many of them university students heading home for Christmas vacation.