Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi arrives in Libya at Tripoli airport. Photograph: Amr Nabil/AP
Thousands of young men were on hand at the military airport in Tripoli where his plane landed. As he disembarked, cheering supporters, some wearing T-shirts bearing his picture, threw flower petals in the air and waved Libyan and miniature Scottish flags, while Libyan songs played in the background.
Wearing a dark suit and burgundy tie, Megrahi left the plane with the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif, who raised his hand to the crowd before they left. Megrahi was reportedly on his way to meet his 95-year-old mother.
Earlier on, in a carefully choreographed day, it took just 67 minutes to free the man who it had taken more than a decade to catch and convict for plotting Britain's worst terrorist atrocity, the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.
At 1pm, the Scottish justice secretary Kenny Macaskill told a press conference of his decision to free Megrahi because spreading prostate cancer is killing him.
At 2.29pm, the white A300 airliner touched down in Glasgow while at Greenock prison, Megrahi, frail and bowed by his illness, walked slowly into a prison van, his face swathed in a white scarf.
At 2.37pm, a small convoy of six police vehicles flanked by a police outriders swept him under the prison's arch. About 80 local residents had gathered outside the gate. Some shouted abuse while some cheered ironically, as the convoy passed.
Roads were closed as the convoy was shepherded through Greenock by its outriders and down the M8 to Glasgow airport, shadowed by a small squadron of police and TV helicopters.
At 3.09pm, Megrahi stepped from the van onto the airport tarmac, his face obscured by a white baseball cap and the scarf. After a handshake with prison guards, Megrahi leaned on a walking stick and pulled himself up the aircraft steps.
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