Members of an influential Holyrood committee have strongly criticised Scottish justice secretary over his release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi last year.

But the justice committee was unable to put out a unified response to the decision to release the Libyan on compassionate grounds last August.

The five opposition and three SNP MSPs on the committee were at odds over most issues.

The Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat MSPs on the committee said Mr MacAskill should have sought a second opinion on a medical report al-Megrahi had three months to live.

The 57-year-old, who suffers from terminal prostate cancer, was released on August 20th 2009 on compassionate grounds despite being sentenced to life eight years earlier over the murder of 270 people on board Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.

The hero's reception he received upon his return to Tripoli angered the families of the Lockerbie victims and led to sharp criticism from the Obama administration over the Scottish justice secretary's decision.

Opposition MSPs on the committee also criticised Mr MacAskill's decision to visit al-Megrahi in Greenock prison prior to his decision and for not taking into account the seriousness of the crime he was convicted of.

"The decision to release Megrahi was the wrong one and it is also clear that it was after a completely botched process," said Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray.

"It was the wrong decision by a soft-touch justice minister who released a man who murdered 270 people to a hero's reception in Tripoli."

Bill Aitken, Tory committee convener, added: "This has been an unusual exercise for the justice committee, and it is fair to say that it has been quite a divisive one.

"Three members of the committee opposed the decision to undertake the inquiry in the first place, and it was not possible to agree on most of the conclusions without a vote."

But the division on the committee was underlined by its three MSPs disagreeing with their colleagues' opinions.

They said he had acted properly in visiting al-Megrahi in prison and it was "quite appropriate" for the justice minister to rely only on Scottish prison service's director of health and social care.