Libya's rebel government says it will not extradite the Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound jetliner that killed 270 people when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The Transitional National Council's justice minister told reporters in Tripoli Sunday that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi already has been tried and convicted in Scotland for bombing Pan Am flight 103. He said the rebels will not hand over Libyan citizens as former leader Moammar Gadhafi did.

The Scottish government said in a statement Monday that after contact with Megrahi's family there is no evidence he is violating the terms of his release, and his medical condition is consistent with someone suffering from terminal cancer. The statement also said any change in his circumstances would be a matter for discussion with the TNC.

CNN television reported Sunday that Megrahi had been found in Tripoli and appeared “near death.”

A correspondent for the network says he found Megrahi at a spacious villa in the Libyan capital guarded by at least six security cameras and attended to by relatives.

CNN footage showed Megrahi apparently laying unconscious in a bed. His family said he is being kept alive with oxygen and a fluid drip, that he has stopped eating and occasionally lapses into a coma.

Scottish authorities freed Megrahi in 2009 on compassionate grounds. Doctors said he had terminal cancer and only months to live. He had served eight years of a minimum 27-year prison sentence.

The decision to release Megrahi outraged the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims, many of whom were from the U.S. The fall of the Gadhafi government has sparked hopes that Libya's new leaders would be willing to extradite the convicted Lockerbie bomber.