Pan Am 103 in revenge for the downing of Iran Air Flight 655. In January 2009, it was reported that, although Megrahi's second appeal against conviction was scheduled to begin on 27 April 2009, the hearing could last as long as 12 months because of the complexity of the case and volume of material to be examined. On 18 August 2009, Megrahi dropped his appeal in light of his terminal prostate cancer. Release and death of Megrahi (2009–2012) On 20 August 2009, Scotland's Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, announced the release of Megrahi under terms of Scottish laws permitting the early release on compassionate grounds of prisoners with terminal illnesses. He had terminal prostate cancer. After his release from Greenock Prison in Scotland, Megrahi travelled in a white police van flanked by police cars to Glasgow Airport, where he boarded a special flight from Libya's Afriqiyah Airways. Megrahi flew home to Tripoli, Libya, accompanied by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi and to a hero's welcome. He died in 2012. In May 2014 a group of relatives of the Lockerbie victims continued to campaign for al-Megrahi's name to be cleared by reopening the case. In December 2014 the Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, said no Crown Office investigator or prosecutor had ever raised concerns about the evidence used to convict Megrahi. He also pledged to continue to track down Megrahi's accomplices. Views Views of Jim Swire Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, and who has been a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, which represented British relatives, has stated that he believes Megrahi is innocent. Swire is also concerned by comments attributed to the former lord advocate Lord Fraser, which appeared to doubt the credibility of a key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci. Swire has stated that "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was ever convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted is to see the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice." Law Professor Robert Black Professor Robert Black of the University of Edinburgh, one of Scotland's top legal experts and the person who devised the non-jury trial that saw the Lockerbie case heard in 2000, has called al-Megrahi's murder conviction "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years". Prof. Black said he felt "a measure of