Foreign Office: Any celebration of al-Megrahi freedom would be "tasteless, offensive and deeply insensitive"
Scotland's First Minister has defended the doctor whose prognosis led to the release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds, as the UK government warned Libya not to celebrate the first anniversary of his freedom.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed from Greenock prison on August 20 last year after his diagnosis with terminal prostate cancer.
The bomber returned to jubilant scenes in Libya where he remains alive, despite being given three months to live.
Alex Salmond said Andrew Fraser, director of health at the Scottish Prison Service, followed a process of "complete integrity".
He said that no one should "seriously doubt either his professional or personal integrity".
Mr Salmond told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that it was Dr Fraser's job to "compile and to present a prognosis based on the medical notes, that is the case records, from the range of people involved in Mr Megrahi's case".
He said: "The medical officer, in this case the head and director of medicine at the Scottish Prison Service, because of the importance of the case, is the person who gives the prognosis on the basis of all the available evidence that he or she can summon.
"That's the only way you can do it because if you did it in any other way you'd be reduced to having a contest between various doctors."
Mr Salmond said the same procedure has been followed in all of the 40 cases reviewed in the last 17 years. During this time there have been four cases of people surviving beyond one year.
The Foreign Office warned that any celebration of his freedom in Libya would be "tasteless, offensive and deeply insensitive".
By The Press Association
