TRIPOLI: A former Libyan agent jailed for life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people flew home to a joyous reception Thursday after Scottish authorities released him on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

Hundreds of young people waving Libyan and Scottish flags greeted the aircraft carrying Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi as it landed in Tripoli amid heavy security. He emerged from the plane wearing a dark suit, his hand held by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s son Seif Al-Islam, who was in the delegation that flew to Scotland to bring him home.

Loudspeakers pumped out patriotic songs ahead of a celebration in the heart of the Libyan capital that Al-Megrahi was expected to attend.

Al-Megrahi, believed to have less than three months to live, was released on the order of Scotland’s justice minister despite strong opposition from the United States, which had campaigned to keep him in prison.

Pan Am Flight 103 was carrying 189 Americans when it left London for New York on Dec. 21, 1988. In all, 259 people on board and 11 on the ground were killed in the bombing.

“He is a dying man, he is terminally ill,” Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill told reporters in explanation. “My decision is that he returns home to die.”

In a statement issued by his lawyer after his departure from Glasgow Airport, Al-Megrahi said that he was innocent and had been wrongly jailed, but also thanked the people of Scotland for setting him free.

“To those victims’ relatives who can bear to hear me say this: they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered,” he said. “Those who bear me ill will, I do not return that to you.

“This horrible ordeal is not ended by my return to Libya. It may never end for me until I die. Perhaps the only liberation for me will be death.”

The United States said it deeply regretted the Scottish government decision and President Barack Obama said Al-Megrahi must not receive a hero’s welcome in Libya and should be placed under house arrest.

Al-Megrahi, 57, is the only person convicted of the bombing. He maintained his innocence, but lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, though a Scottish review board ruled in 2007 that there might have been a miscarriage of justice.

A second appeal was withdrawn this week, opening the way for his release on compassionate grounds.

Relatives of many of the American victims thought Al-Megrahi should have served his full life sentence in prison after being convicted of Britain’s deadliest terrorist attack. “I think it’s horrible,” said Kara Weipz of Mount Laurel, whose 20-year-old brother Richard Monetti was a Syracuse University student aboard the flight.

“I think it’s appalling, disgusting and so sickening I can hardly find words to describe it,” said Susan Cohen of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, whose 20-year-old daughter Theodora died in the attack.

“Lockerbie looks like it never happened now,” she said. “There isn’t anybody in prison for it.”