`` People here are n't interested in the politics , they just want to carry on with their lives . '' Stobbs has vivid memories of the night of December 21 , 1988 -- the `` shortest and darkest night of the year , '' he says . `` The houses were just slowly burning and more houses were catching fire . The windows were popping , the gutters were burning , everything was burning . It was like hell . I remember seeing a wrought iron gate in the distance and I remember it was dripping like molten butter , drip drip dripping away . '' At first Stobbs thought it was a military aircraft which had crashed into the town . Then he heard that the nose cone of a 747 had landed in a field three miles from Lockerbie and he knew that he was dealing with far greater numbers of dead . `` We were told about the 747 , '' he says , `` and we realized we were n't looking for twenty people but for 300 . But where were they ? '' There is a small memorial room beside the little church of
LOCKERBIE , Scotland -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi 's fate hangs in the balance . The Libyan man convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie bombings has terminal prostate cancer and , according to his lawyers , just weeks to live . Mourners at the 20th anniversary memorial service for the victims of the Lockerbie bombing . Scotland 's Justice Minister Frank MacAskill is weighing up whether to release him on compassionate grounds so he can die at home ; to transfer him to a Libyan jail under a prisoner transfer agreement drawn up between Libya and the UK ; or whether to keep him in a Scottish jail for the rest of his days . That is certainly the preferred option of the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who last week wrote to Mr MacAskill urging him not to send Al Megrahi home . In Lockerbie itself , matters of politics seem far removed . George Stobbs was one of the first policemen on the scene when the Boeing 747 crashed into Sherwood Crescent . `` I 've never talked about the politics of the thing because I had no interest , '' he says .