ABDELBASET Ali Mohmed al Megrahi had a particularly aggressive form of prostate cancer but survived far longer than expected.

Last Wednesday marked 1000 days since his release from prison on compassionate grounds when medics said he would be unlikely to survive much more than three months. He was diagnosed with the disease in September 2008, by which time it had spread to his lymph nodes and spine. He received hormone therapy, a common treatment for prostate cancer, but one that can only delay further decline.

By July 3, 2009, Megrahi's doctors said the hormone treatment was no longer working. In a letter to Kenny MacAskill, Megrahi wrote: "I am terminally ill. There is no prospect of my recovery."

Professor Karol Sikora, one of several cancer experts who visited Megrahi in Greenock Prison, said he believed Megrahi had no more than three months to live.

However, the medical evidence was placed under considerable scrutiny by critics of the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds. They contended he could live a good deal longer.

At the age of 56, Megrahi was much younger than an average patient diagnosed in their early-70s. And, once back in Tripoli, he had access to new, experimental drugs.

One of those drugs was the cutting-edge, life-prolonging prostate cancer drug abiraterone. Costing up to £3000 a month, there was controversy earlier this year when the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) rejected it on the grounds it was not cost-effective.

Opposition politicians attacked the SNP Government for allowing Scots prostate cancer patients to be denied a treatment handed out in Libya to the country's most famous former prisoner.