Families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing stood sharply divided over reports that the former Libyan agent jailed for life for the attack may be freed on compassionate grounds.
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, 57, who was convicted of murder in 2001, is dying of prostate cancer and could be released from a Scottish jail as early as next week, unconfirmed media reports said.
A Scottish government spokeswoman said no decision had been taken, while a spokesman for Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, said the reports were "complete speculation". Megrahi's lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Megrahi was found guilty under Scottish law at a trial in the Netherlands of blowing up a Pan Am Boeing 747 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie as it flew from London to New York. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
The bomb killed all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground.
Relatives of British victims said they had never been convinced of Megrahi's guilt and broadly welcomed the reports of his possible release.
They said the evidence against Megrahi, which largely depended on the eyewitness testimony of a shopkeeper in Malta, was seriously flawed and fell short of the standard required to prove the Libyan's guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter died in the attack, said it was crucial that Megrahi's appeal in the Scottish courts was allowed to continue to find out exactly what happened.
"I am not absolutely convinced of Megrahi's guilt nor of his innocence," she told the BBC. "We simply at this point do not know enough ... to be able to make that judgment."
American relatives of some of those killed said there can be no doubt about Megrahi's guilt after it was tested during an 84-day trial and upheld at the first appeal.
Bert Ammerman, whose brother Tom was killed on the flight, said the release of Megrahi would be "insane, immoral, reprehensible", adding: "He should finish out his term in Scotland, pass away and then send him home in a casket."
Four years after Megrahi's conviction, Libya accepted responsibility and agreed to pay $US2.7 billion in compensation to victims' families. That helped clear the way for Western states to lift sanctions and restore their ties with Libya.
