Real News
Brown Wanted Lockerbie Bomber to Die Free
Wednesday September 2nd, 2009
FOX News -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing accuations of double-dealing after an official document emerged on Tuesday revealing that Libya was told Brown wanted the Lockerbie bomber to die a free man.
"We did not want him to die in prison... We weren't seeking his death in prison," Foreign Secretary David Miliband confirmed to BBC radio on Wednesday.
The 57-year-old al-Megrahi, was convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. Scotland freed him on compassionate grounds Aug. 20 after doctors said he had terminal cancer.
The disclosure threatens to undermine the British government's determinedly neutral stance over the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
It could also deepen the rift with the Obama administration, which yesterday demanded answers from the government over its role in the affair.
Documents released by the Scottish government included the minutes of a meeting with Libya earlier this year during which it was stated that Bill Rammell, then a foreign office minister, told Tripoli that neither the prime minister nor Miliband, "would want Megrahi to pass away in prison."
"The allegation that is being made ... is that somehow we pressured the Scottish government into making a decision one way or another," Miliband said, insisting, "There was no pressure from the British government on the Scots."
Britain is already under pressure over its decision to strike a prisoner transfer deal with Libya in defiance of a decade-old pledge to Washington. The Foreign Office insists that the U.S. was never given an absolute commitment, but revelations that Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, believed that such a deal would be in the "overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom" have infuriated U.S. diplomats.
Philip Crowley, chief spokesman for the U.S. State Department, told The Times of London: "In the late 1990s, as the U.S. and the U.K. were putting in place the legal framework for the trial of the perpetrators of Pan Am 103, it was our collective view that any suspect found guilty would serve out his entire sentence in Scotland. The U.S. did not change its position but the U.K. did ... It's really up to the U.K. to explain its current position."
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