World News : British prosecutors ask Libya's NTC for Lockerbie help

LONDON (World News) - Scottish prosecutors have asked Libya's interim rulers for help in tracking down information which could lead to others, even deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi, being charged over the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland.

"In particular we have asked the NTC (National Transitional Council) to make available to the Crown any documentary evidence and witnesses which could assist in the ongoing enquiries," a spokeswoman for the Scottish Crown Office said on Monday.

The NTC said it expected to be able to comment, later on Monday.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan agent who was convicted of the bombing which killed 270 people, was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 and returned to Libya because he was suffering from advanced terminal prostate cancer and thought to have months to live.

His release and return to a hero's welcome in Libya, coupled with his survival long beyond doctors' predictions, infuriated many in the United States -- home to most of the victims.

But the Crown Office noted his trial court had accepted he had not acted alone.

"Lockerbie remains an open enquiry concerning the involvement of others with Mr Megrahi in the murder of 270 people," the spokeswoman said.

Police at the time said they had submitted a list of eight other suspects whom they wanted to interview but that Gaddafi had refused to allow them to be questioned.

In March, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Libya's former justice minister and now its interim leader, said he had evidence of Gaddafi's involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Megrahi's co-accused at the specially convened Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in 2000 was Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah who was cleared of mass murder.

He told Sweden's Expressen newspaper last month that Gaddafi should be tried in court over widespread suspicions he ordered the bomb ing.

"There is a court and he is the one to explain whether he is innocent or not," Fhimah said. "He has to."

In Tripoli, asked about the Scottish move, acting NTC justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi told World News he expected to be in a position to comment later on Monday.