Exclusive: CNN’s Nic Robertson Refutes Claim He ‘Staged’ Finding al-Megrahi

Mediaite: Still lots of recent anger over the compassionate release. Many are suggesting he is faking his coma. Any thought to his faking or really being ill?

Robertson: I would describe it this way. Before we went to his house we first went to his old house that he was having renovated, and it’s a massive building, I mean there is a lot of money being spent. There is an elevator shaft in it, and we found some of the architectural plans, and it’s beautiful…and it was clear to me, I mean I was thinking, this was a guy that had bags of money to spend, more than a normal intelligence operative would have…bags of money to spend.

” I’m not a doctor. And I didn’t check his pulse or blood pressure, so I can’t say with 100 percent his real state of health, but this did seem to be a man who is in his last days.”

Now I had learned from working on a documentary that Megrahi was always very important to Gaddafi, and that he’d always told Megrahi’s tribe that he’d bring him back, and in turn his tribe supported Gaddafi, so I knew that Gaddafi was going to do good by him when he returned to Libya. So when I saw this building, you realized how much money he got for all he’s been through. So I’m also thinking this guy’s building a house like this?! I mean I’m thinking that a guy that’s going to die isn’t going to build a house like this. So I have that going through the back of my mind when I roll up to the house he lives in now. That’s why I’m thinking that I’m going to be seeing someone sitting in a wheelchair.

I spent several years working to get access to Megrahi. The 2009 documentary I did in Libya was about 1-2 weeks after Megrahi had been released and I saw him rolled out in a wheelchair with a face mask on…he was looking tired, but he hadn’t lost any weight, so I have that comparison that i can make from two years ago. So when I walked into the room and saw this completely inert body there, it was clearly different than what I’d seen before. The other thing that you pick up is the atmosphere and the mood of the people in the room. There was his mother sitting by his side holding his hand. His wrists looked thin, his skin looked very thin and week. His face was drawn and sunken.

You know I said this on CNN, I’m not a doctor. And I didn’t check his pulse or blood pressure, so I can’t say with 100 percent his real state of health, but this did seem to be a man who is in his last days. I did go back and look at the video I had taken very closely about four times to see if I could catch him sneaking a look or even moving his eyes and I didn’t see anything at all that suggested he wasn’t really ill.

Mediaite: Did you sense any anger or contrition by the Megrahi family? Did you feel as though you were in danger at all?

Robertson: Well, its a very complex situation that I will try to sum up as simply as possible. The overriding feeling I got from the Megrahi family is one of fear. They clearly understand the situation that they are in and the scrutiny, but they also still are very afraid of Gadaffi’s people, for all they know they are still being watched and could be under some surveillance or attack by some of Gaddafi’s agents.

“It is very clear to me that (Megrahi’s family) truly believe that Megrahi is innocent of the charges, that they believe that in addition to the the billions of dollars that he had to hand over, Gaddafi also needed to provide a fall guy.”

As for contrition – its very clear to me that these people truly believe that Megrahi is innocent of the charges, that they believe that in addition to the billions of dollars that he had to hand over, Gaddafi also needed to provide a fall guy. And they clearly feel like Megrahi is and was a fall guy that was playing the part for Gaddafi, which in some respects could explain his opulent house. The media was always kept away from Megrahi, and there’s a reason for that. Remember, Megrahi hasn’t controlled his destiny. Their lives are not their own.

But the people that I met seemed very terrified of the uncertainty surrounding them, and very sad at the apparent grave state of Megrahi in an apparent coma.