The Lockerbie bomber could survive for 10 years or longer, according to the cancer specialist who said last year he would be dead within three months of his release, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Karol Sikora, who assessed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi for the Libyan authorities almost a year ago, told the Sunday Times it was “embarrassing” that Megrahi had outlived his three-month prognosis.
The Scottish government provoked outrage from the US when it released Megrahi from prison in August last year on compassionate grounds because he is suffering from terminal cancer.
Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which left 270 people dead.
However, the newspaper claimed that Sikora, the dean of medicine at Buckingham University, England, was the only expert the Libyan authorities could find who would agree to put the three-month estimate on Megrahi’s life.
It reported that the advice of two other experts was ignored after they said Megrahi could live for 19 months.
“There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years ... But it’s very unusual,” Sikora said.
The professor told the Sunday Times that the Libyan authorities made it clear to him that if he concluded Megrahi would die in a matter of months, it would greatly improve his chances of being released from jail in Scotland.
“It was clear that three months was what they were aiming for. Three months was the critical point,” Sikora said. “On the balance of probabilities, I felt I could sort of justify [that].”
He denied he came any under pressure, but admitted: “It is embarrassing that he’s gone on for so long.”
“There was a 50 percent chance that he would die in three months, but there was also a 50 percent chance that he would live longer,” Sikora said.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s eldest son, Saif al-Islam, said in May that Megrahi was still “very sick” with advanced stage cancer.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS