'Gaddafi's cafe' a far cry from Dutch cell

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The most notorious mass murderer in British legal history, Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, will find life inside Glasgow's notorious Barlinnie prison very different from his confinement to date.

For the past three years the 49-year-old Libyan security agent behind the Lockerbie bombing has been kept in a relatively comfortable cell in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. He will find that was a world apart from the cramped and crumbling Victorian jail where he is now expected to spend the next 20 years.

The brick-built prison, which is made up of five halls designed to hold 934 convicts but regularly holds more than 1,200, was constructed in 1894 and is showing its age. Although Megrahi is expected to be kept in a segregated area, nicknamed Gaddafi's cafe,prison officials have said they will expect him to follow the same routine as the other inmates.

Each day begins at 6.15am with a numbers check and then all prisoners are expected to "slop-out" and wash before breakfast. For five days of the week all inmates are expected to work in the metal salvaging sheds, or the textile and wood workshops where prisoners make pallets and donkey jackets for outside contractors.

Every evening the prisoners are allowed two hours of recreation before being returned to the cells for lights out at 9pm.