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
Dumfries, Lochmaben and Lockerbie Railway CR proposed to build a line from Lochmaben to Dinwoodie, on the West Coast Main Line several miles to the north of Lockerbie, to make a more direct connection from Dumfries to the north; this would have avoided the reversal at Lockerbie, but the scheme was not proceeded with. In the years leading to 1876 passengers from Stranraer to London by the evening boat train went via Annan on the G&SWR to Carlisle, joining an LNWR train there. The arrival of the Midland Railway at Carlisle on completion of the Settle and Carlisle Line, and the alliance between the MR