Abdelbaset al-Megrahi 10 August 2009 that he had terminal prostate cancer. On his return to Libya, al-Megrahi was initially hospitalized then allowed to leave on 2 November 2009, taking up residence in a villa in Tripoli. He died on 20 May 2012, two years and 9 months after his release. Several legal experts as well as the UN observer at the Lockerbie trial have vehemently challenged the verdict that convicted Megrahi, while Ulrich Lumpert, the Mebo AG engineer who testified to the validity of a key piece of evidence, admitted in an affidavit to lying in court and stealing the object from
Lockerbie large crater, with debris causing damage to other buildings nearby. All 259 people on the flight also died. The 270 total victims were citizens of 20 different nations. The event remains the deadliest terrorist attack and aviation disaster in Britain. Lockerbie Academy, the town's high school, became the headquarters for the response and recovery effort after the Pan Am Flight 103 disaster. Subsequently, the academy, in cooperation with Syracuse University of Syracuse, New York, US, which lost 35 students in the bombing, established a scholarship at the university. Each year, two students spend one academic year at Syracuse University as