SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Contrails still paint the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, a landmark well known to pilots heading across the Atlantic. On the ground, there are few physical scars left from a dark chapter in this town's history. The bombing of Pan Am 103 more than 20 years ago.

It wasn't until 2001 that a panel of Scottish judges assessed blame, finding a Libyan intelligence agent, Abdel Bassett Al Megrahi, guilty of the murders of 259 aboard the jet and 11 people on the ground. Much of the focus in recent years has been on claims that the evidence in the case was tainted. An appeal had been pending to try to overturn the conviction. As recently as last year, the man who helped indict Megrahi, doubted he had the wrong man.

“There's nothing that I have read that makes me think, wow, there seriously was a miscarriage of justice here,” Lord Peter Fraser, former Scottish Lord Advocate, said in 2008.

Others, like Professor Robert Black at Edinburgh University's school of law, disagreed strongly.

“The only justice, I think, that can be achieved, realistically in this case, is the release of a man who was wrongly convicted,” Black said.

All the while, Megrahi remained behind bars at Grenock prison near Glasgow with his attorneys pressing for the case to be reviewed, but also arguing that Megrahi, whom they claim suffers from terminal cancer, should be granted a so-called "compassionate release." Word that the prisoner has now dropped his appeal appears to confirm a deal is in the works, over growing complaints from those who lost loved ones in the bombing.

Compassion for Megrahi has also been a hard sell here, on the campus of Syracuse University, where they still remember more than 30 students who were killed on December 21st, 1988.

Judith O'Rourke, who helped comfort families of those students in 1988, says Megrahi should receive any necessary treatment in prison and should remain behind bars.

“That is a small measure of justice for this terrible, terrible action,” O’Rourke said.

Theo Cohen was one of those Syracuse University students who died. Her mother will have nothing to do with compassion for Megrahi.

“This man killed 270 people. He's getting medical treatment in Scotland. Oh. Oh. Woah. Woah. So sad. Why don't you feel sorry for me? My daughter is dead. She was 20 years old,” Sue Cohen said.

Despite the complaints, the Libyan could go free as early as next week.