UK: No trade link to Libyan release

The UK government has denied that the release of Adbelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, had any connection to trade ties with Libya.

A report in The Sunday Times, a British newspaper, alleged that an oil deal had influenced the decision to transfer al-Megrahi from prison in Scotland to his home in Libya last week.

The newspaper said that it had ascertained leaked letters written by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, in 2007 in which he said that it was "in the overwhelming interest of the United Kingdom" not to exclude al-Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

Straw had written to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who made the formal decision to release al-Megrahi.

Six weeks after the letter was written an oil deal between Libya and BP, a UK oil firm, was formalised.

Following The Sunday Times' article Straw said that the prisoner transfer agreement was part of an attempt to end Libya's international isolation following Tripoli's abandonment of a nuclear weapons programme.

"What is totally untrue is that any part of these negotiations with the Libyans was that at some stage Mr Megrahi would be released," Straw said.

He said that the Scottish government maintained veto power over any prisoner transfer and had rejected such a move for al-Megrahi, rather choosing a compassionate release.

"The implication that, somehow or other, we have done some backdoor deal in order to release Mr Megrahi is simply nonsense," Straw said.

Al-Megrahi was convicted of bombing a Pan Am flight over the Scotish town of Lockerbie in 1988, killing 270 people.

He was freed on compassionate grounds, as he is said to be suffering from terminal cancer.

Al-Megrahi was admitted to a Tripoli hospital on Sunday after his condition deteriorated rapidly.

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Source: Al Jazeera (English)

Lockerbie bomber backs call for inquiry

August 29

THE man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people said he would co-operate with a fresh public inquiry and provide documents he has.

Former Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the bombing, told Scotland's Herald daily the victims' families deserved to know the truth about Pan Am flight 103, which crashed into the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.

Scotland freed Megrahi, 57, last week on compassionate grounds after eight years in jail because he is dying of cancer.

His release, and his rapturous reception on his return to Tripoli, has dismayed the US Government which lost 189 citizens in the bombing.

"I support the issue of a public inquiry if it can be agreed," Megrahi told the newspaper.

"In my view, it is unfair to the victims' families that this has not been heard. It would help them to know the truth. As I said, the truth never dies.

"If the UK guaranteed it, I would be very supportive. I would want to help Dr Swire and the others with the documents I hold." Read more here ...

Source: The Australian

Dhimmiheart: Scotland, the CIA and Yale in acts of surrender to the jihad.

By Jed Babbin

If only there were a conspiracy to blame, but there isn’t. It would be comforting, in a perverse way, to discover a home video showing Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, CIA Director Leon Panetta and the bosses of Yale University Press smoking cigars and playing cards with Muammar Gaddafi.

But there is no conspiracy, only a rampant loss of will to defend freedom in the West. Today’s release of the long-awaited CIA Inspector General’s report on terrorist interrogations rides close upon the heels of Scotland’s “compassionate” release of a terrorist mass-murderer and an act of self-censorship by Yale Press that are, each in its turn, acts of surrender to the terrorist nations that war against us.

Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi -- an agent of Libyan intelligence -- was found guilty of putting a bomb on board Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988, resulting in an explosion that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans on board and 11 Scots on the ground below. Last week’s decision by MacAskill to free Megrahi was an act of phony compassion. Read more ...

Source: Human Events

Kenny MacAskill
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award

The courting of Libya

Matthew Campbell | August 24

THEY are expecting a magnificent party in Tripoli tomorrow when Libya marks Muammar Gaddafi's 40th year in power and pays tribute to the deft diplomatic footwork of Saif al-Islam, his son.

The only man convicted for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, southern Scotland, in 1988 is finally home; and the suave Saif, whose name means sword of Islam, is credited with a key role in making it happen.

An agreement struck long ago between former British prime minister Tony Blair and Gaddafi had threatened to fall apart with potentially catastrophic consequences. It has emerged that Libya threatened to freeze diplomatic relations with Britain if Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who is suffering from prostate cancer, was not released under a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

In the end, he was freed by Scotland on "compassionate" grounds and escorted home to Tripoli by Saif, who thrust Megrahi's hand into the air as they came down the steps of Gaddafi's airliner to a hero's welcome that has outraged the families of Lockerbie's 270 victims.

Protests are undimmed, but official responses are evasive, unsurprisingly, because behind Megrahi's release lie weeks of intrigue between Westminster, Tripoli, Edinburgh and Washington.

Apart from the unfortunate Lockerbie families, everyone seems to have got what they wanted. Gaddafi and his son have their man. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, who signed the release order, has burnished his humanitarian credentials.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has preserved Britain's politically and economically valuable new relationship with Libya while avoiding any blame for the release and US politicians have been able to bluster in protest while exercising none of their considerable clout to stop ithappening.

The reality is that Megrahi's freedom is a product of the effort to bring Libya out of isolation.

This is as much to the US's advantage as Britain's, but Washington has too much baggage to be openly involved. It bombed Libya in 1986 in punishment for supporting terrorism, and Gaddafi remains a bogeyman to many Americans. So Britain takes the lead, except when it can devolve the dirty work on to a Scottish politician.

A so-called "deal in the desert" reached between Gaddafi and Blair in a tent outside Tripoli in 2004 led to a broad rapprochement with Libya and a prisoner transfer agreement that Gaddafi saw, from the outset, as a means of bringing home Megrahi. The Libyans became increasingly angry, however, at what they regarded as British foot-dragging over the transfer. "They were furious with the Foreign Office because things were not panning out as they were told they would," says a source close to the Scottish administration. "The Foreign Office had been telling the Libyans that they were confident the Scottish government would agree to their prisoner transfer request." Read more here ...

Source: The Australian

Lockerbie bomber arrives in Libya

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was convicted in
2001 for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

A Libyan former agent jailed for the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over the Scottish town of Lockerbie has landed in Libya after being freed from prison on the orders of Scotland's justice minister.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, 57, who is dying of prostate cancer, flew home on Thursday after Kenny MacAskill said he should be released on compassionate grounds.

"It is my decision that Mr al-Megrahi ... be released on compassionate grounds and be returned to Libya to die," he said.

The announcement has been met with heavy criticism from the United States government and some victims' families, who believe al-Megrahi, held responsible for the 270 deaths in the bombing, should remain behind bars.

Barack Obama, the US president, described the release as a "mistake" and said that al-Megrahi should be placed under house arrest on his return.

Al-Megrahi returned to Libya after boarding a plane at Prestwick airport in Glasgow, Scotland. Read more here ...

Source: Al Jazeera (English)