THREE judges today threw out the Lockerbie bomber's bid to be freed on bail.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi applied for interim release from jail pending the outcome of an appeal against conviction.

Libyan insists: I am innocent MEGRAHI has consistently denied being responsible for the worst mass murder in British legal history. The Libyan intelligence agent was convicted in 2001 of killing 270 people in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Former Libyan Airlines security steward Megrahi, 56, was first indicted for the outrage in 1991. He was accused along with fellow Libyan Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah. Megrahi had spent years on the FBI's "most wanted" list, with US detectives claiming his airline work was a cover for a role with the Libyan Secret Service. Megrahi and Fhimah eventually stood trial in 2000, conducted under Scots law at a specially convened court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. It was one of the most complex trials yet staged, involving 84 days of evidence from 230 witnesses, lasting nearly seven months and costing an estimated £75million. Trial judges were convinced he had bought clothes from a shop in Malta which were packed around the bomb before it was placed on board Pan Am flight 103 on the Mediterranean island. Megrahi was eventually sentenced to 27 years, while his co-accused was cleared. In an interview published shortly after his conviction, he said: "God is my witness that I am innocent." Today's ruling means the cancer-stricken Libyan must remain in jail. Megrahi is still determined to carry on the fight to clear his name.

But judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal rejected the application.

It emerged last month the 56-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and the disease had spread.

The judgment was delivered by the Lord Justice General Lord Hamilton along with Lord Kingarth and Lord Wheatley.

Lord Hamilton said: "The critical question, as the court sees it, is, against the background of the atrocity of which the applicant stands convicted, whether the applicant's health, present and prospective, is such as the court should on compassionate grounds now admit him to bail.

"On balance the court is not persuaded, on the information before it, that it should.

"While the disease from which the appellant suffers is incurable and may cause his death, he is not at present suffering material pain or disability."

Megrahi is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years for the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988 which led to the deaths of 270 people.

British relatives' spokesman Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed, said it was difficult to see the justification for the decision to refuse bail.

A statement read out on Dr Swire's behalf said: "It has never been a goal of our group to seek revenge.

"And the refusal of a return to his family for a dying man whose verdict is not even yet secure looks uncomfortably like either an aspect of revenge - or perhaps timidity."

Al Megrahi, who was not in court today, was taken from HMP Greenock under tight security to undergo tests at Inverclyde Royal Hospital in Greenock in September.

Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001.

He lost an appeal in 2002 but was given a fresh chance to clear his name in June last year when the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to appeal judges for a second time. His appeal is due to be heard next year.

Last week, appeal judges in Edinburgh were told a "compelling case" existed for freeing Megrahi - currently symptom free and eating and sleeping normally - on compassionate grounds pending appeal.

But they ruled Al Megrahi could live for years if he responded to treatment, adding he can reapply for bail if treatment appears to be failing.