Ride home waits for Gaddafi's son

The plane which ferried Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi home to Libya in August is parked at Christchurch Airport waiting to take family of the country's leader home.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, 37, is believed to be in Central Otago on holiday.

His father's private jet with its Air Afriqiyah livery will be in the country until January 4.

The younger Gaddafi was pivotal in gaining the early release of al-Megrahi, 57, in August after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Al-Megrahi was given a life sentence in Britain for placing a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people.