Senators urge probe of Lockerbie bomber's release

TRENTON - Four U.S. senators are calling on the United Kingdom to investigate the circumstances of last year's release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie airliner bombing.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison in September because a doctor said the cancer-stricken man had only three months to live.

He had served eight years of a life sentence for the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103 as it flew from London to New York.

But recently a doctor said al-Megrahi could live for another decade.

U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, all Democrats, requested the investigation yesterday in a letter to the U.K.'s ambassador to the United States.- AP