* So it seems the UK was involved in releasing the Lockerbie murderer
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 1, 2009
Yahoo News UK/Ireland reports (8/30/09) …
- The row over the release of the Lockerbie bomber has been reignited as it emerged that Jack Straw decided two years ago that it was in the UK’s “overwhelming interests” not to exclude the terrorist from a prisoner transfer agreement.
- The Justice Secretary wrote to his Scottish counterpart explaining that he had changed his mind about the need to exempt Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi from the deal in the light of “wider negotiations” with the Libyans.
- Mr Straw strenuously denied that Britain’s commercial interests had any bearing on the recent release of Megrahi.
- Mr Straw’s involvement in the case was laid bare in letters he wrote to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill in 2007 and leaked to The Sunday Times.
- In one, he wrote: “I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement. I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion.
- “The wider negotiations are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the (prisoner transfer agreement) should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”
- Mr Straw’s apparent change of heart came at a crucial time in negotiations about an oil exploration contract for BP in Libya. Six weeks later, the deal was ratified.
- Megrahi’s release – sanctioned by Mr MacAskill earlier this month – was not in fact part of the prisoner transfer agreement but made on compassionate grounds.
- Mr Straw said it was “simple nonsense” to suggest that there had been any kind of “backdoor deal” to release Megrahi. He also stressed that the Scottish Executive always retained a veto over the release.
- Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was allowed to leave Greenock prison to go home to Libya to die, having served just eight years of a minimum 27-year sentence. The man who was convicted of murdering 270 people in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 returned to a hero’s welcome. The scenes provoked international condemnation.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090830/tuk-leaks-reignite-lockerbie-row-6323e80.html
