LOCKERBIE , Scotland ( CNN ) -- 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 . `` 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 Tundergarth , across the road from where the nose cone landed . Inside are inscriptions from visitors commemorating the huge loss of life and photographs of each of the 270 people who died in the Lockerbie bombing . `` Gentle Lockerbie '' reads one of the inscriptions from a family member who lost a loved one . `` Some say the land there is now tainted , I say it is blessed . '' In the field itself there are no marks to suggest where the nose cone landed . The local farmer points to the horizon across the rolling Scottish hills . `` Between here and the top of the hill , here on my father 's farm , we found 120 bodies , '' he says . The force of the explosion and the wind that night blew bits of the plane , personal possessions and body parts across a vast area . Stobbs , and hundreds of policemen and other volunteers combed 845 square meters of land looking for clues as to what brought the plane down . Documents from the plane were even discovered in the North Sea , 60 miles away . The crucial piece of evidence that implicated Al Megrahi was a scrap of clothing wrapped around a part of the device used to detonate the suitcase bomb . It was traced back to a Maltese boutique whose shop-owner recognized Al Megrahi . Lockerbie local John Gair said he was never entirely convinced of Al Megrahi 's guilt . `` I did feel that some of the evidence was circumstantial , '' he says . `` I think partly out of compassion and partly out of a possible element of doubt , he should be allowed out . '' As he looks down Sherwood Crescent at the neat rows of houses , not yet twenty years old , he says : `` Life goes on and once a tragedy like this is over people pick up the threads of their lives . And they do n't forget but they do n't dwell on it . Because there 's no earthly point in dwelling on any of this . '' 270 people from 21 nations lost their lives in the beautiful hills around Lockerbie . Some of them had been so badly incinerated no trace of them was ever found , just their personal belongings and the Pan Am passenger list which proved they 'd been on board . Twenty years later in the town of Lockerbie , the streets have been rebuilt , the past buried , but not forgotten .
BBC 's Diana Magnay travels to Lockerbie , Scotland two years on from the plane crash . Scottish police inspector George Stobbs visited the scene of devastation . Hundreds of policemen and other volunteers combed 845 square miles of land . Scottish local John Gair said he was never entirely convinced of Al Megrahi 's guilt .