TRIPOLI, Libya ? A Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie has attended a rally in Tripoli in support of Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's state TV said.
The presence of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi at Tuesday's rally appeared to be another sign of defiance by the embattled Gadhafi regime. The TV broadcast showed a man wearing a white turban and sitting in a wheelchair during the rally and identified him as al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.
Gadhafi, locked in a civil war with Libyan rebels for the past five months, has rejected calls by the international community to step down. Instead, he has threatened to attack targets in Europe unless NATO stops its bombing campaign of regime-linked installations in Libya. NATO is acting under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians.
Al-Megrahi was convicted in the 1988 downing of a Pan Am plane that killed 270 people, most of them Americans, over Scotland. He was released from a Scottish prison in 2009 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Al-Megrahi returned to a hero's welcome in Libya later that year.
Britain, meanwhile, officially recognized Libya's main opposition group, the National Transitional Council, as the country's legitimate government, and on Wednesday expelled all diplomats from Gadhafi's regime.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain is unfreezing 91 million pounds ($150 million) of Libyan oil assets to help the opposition group which the U.K. now recognizes as "the sole governmental authority in Libya."
Hague said the council has been invited to send an ambassador to London, adding that "we will deal with the National Transitional Council on the same basis as other governments around the world."
In the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, the main rebel stronghold, rebel chief Mustafa Abdul-Jalil praised the British decision as an economic and political boost to the Libyan opposition.
Abdul-Jalil also said rebel forces will keep fighting during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a time of heightened religious observance that begins next week.
"Fighting during Ramadan is not something we want to do," Abdul-Jalil told a news conference. "But if Gadhafi does not step down, we will fight, and you must know that this month will keep up our morale."
Abdul-Jalil reiterated that a proposal to let Gadhafi retire in Libya, provided he resigns, is no longer on the table. The rebel chief said proposal was linked to a deadline by which Gadhafi would have had to step down. That deadline has passed, "and that makes the proposal no longer valid," Abdul-Jalil said.
Over the past week, officials in the U.S., France and Britain have said they would not object to such an arrangement, provided it's accepted by the Libyan people.
Letting Gadhafi retire in Libya might have been a possible way out of the military and political deadlock of the past few months. The civil war broke out shortly after anti-government protests, inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, swept across Libya in February.
Rebels now control the east of the country and pockets in the west, while Gadhafi clings to power in the remaining areas.
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Associated Press writer Rami al-Shaheibi in Benghazi, Libya, contributed reporting.
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