Real News
Lockerbie Correspondence to be Released
Tuesday September 1st, 2009
LONDON/Associated Press -- The U.K. and Scottish governments on Tuesday are to make public correspondence relating to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown continued to insist his government played no part in the decision to let Abdel Baset al-Megrahi return to Libya.
The moves follow weekend media claims that the U.K. government struck a deal with Libyan authorities to include al-Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement because it was considered to be in Britain's interests at a time when a major oil deal was being negotiated.
Brown told the Financial Times that the decision to release al-Megrahi rested with the Scottish government in Edinburgh and that he told Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi at the Group of 8 meetings in Italy in July that his administration had no role.
"I made it absolutely clear to him then that this was not a decision, the future and fate of Mr. al-Megrahi, that we as the United Kingdom could take," the newspaper quoted Brown as saying. "It was a matter for the Scottish Executive, and it was their decision, and their decision alone, that would decide it."
The Sunday Times, citing leaked correspondence between Justice Secretary Jack Straw and his Scottish counterpart Kenny MacAskill, said the decision not to exclude al-Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement - as had originally been requested - was made as "wider negotiations" with the government of Libya continued.
Straw immediately dismissed as "simply untrue" any suggestion that economic considerations had an effect on the decision to release al-Megrahi.
A spokesman for the Scottish executive said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy that Edinburgh intended to make public minutes of a meeting between al-Megrahi and MacAskill, plus prison and parole board reports and letters from victims' families.
Downing Street has said all "relevant correspondence" between British ministers and the Scottish government will be released.
Al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988, has terminal prostate cancer. MacAskill decided last month that he would be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya, rejecting the option of sending al-Megrahi home under the prisoner transfer agreement.
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