London - Respect for the British government and the regional administration in Scotland in the Arab world will grow as a result of the expected release Thursday of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a lawyer involved in the case has said.

Saad Jabbar, a lawyer acting for the Libyan government, told the BBC that al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the 1988 terrorist attack in 2001, was innocent.

"This man was wrongly convicted and it is right that he should be released," Jabbar said.

He denied that there could have been a "stitch-up" to facilitate al-Megrahi's release.

There has been speculation that al-Megrahi unexpectedly dropped an appeal against his sentence last week in order to hasten his release.

Critics said the prisoner could have come under "political pressure" to give up his legal fight, as a possible new trial could have shown that he is not guilty of the attack.

But Jabbar insisted that personal reasons alone were behind al- Megrahi's decision to drop the appeal. "He drew every card in desperation. He wanted to die in his homeland," Jabbar said about the prisoner, who is gravely ill with prostate cancer.

The Scottish government is expected to announce later Thursday the release of al-Megrahi, who has spent almost a decade in jail. The 57- year-old is then expected to fly out of Britain immediately to arrive in Libya in time for Ramadan, which starts Friday.

"Rest assured that the Scottish government has done the UK a great favour," Jabbar said. Respect for Britain "in the eyes of the Arab world will grow."

Meanwhile, Scottish National Party (SNP) parliamentarian Christine Grahame, who has repeatedly visited al-Megrahi in prison, indicated that he could have come under political pressure to abandon his legal fight.

"There are a number of vested interests who have been deeply opposed to this appeal continuing as they know it would go a considerable way towards exposing the truth about Lockerbie," she told the Independent newspaper.

Moves to return al-Megrahi to his native Libya have led to tension with the US government, which has insisted that al-Megrahi must serve out his minimum term of 27 years for the 1988 atrocity.

The former Libyan secret agent was sentenced to life in 2001 for the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, in which 270 people died, of whom 189 were US citizens. (dpa)