[This is the headline over a report on the website of the news agency Reuters. It reads in part:]
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday she would look into a request by US lawmakers that the State Department investigate whether oil company BP plc had a hand in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.
According to media reports, London-based oil company BP lobbied the British government to support the prison transfer, which may have encouraged Libya to finalize an offshore drilling deal with BP. (...)
"I have received the letter and we will obviously look into it," Clinton said in response to a reporter's question, referring to a letter from Democratic Senators Robert Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer.
[This story also features in Thursday's edition of The Guardian, where Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is quoted as saying: "It is almost too disgusting to fathom that BP had a possible role in securing the release of the Lockerbie terrorist in return for an oil drilling deal."
The Herald also has a report in which Sen Schumer is quoted: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it just might be a corrupt deal between BP, the British Government and Libya.”
The Aljazeera news website also features a report.]
According to media reports, London-based oil company BP lobbied the British government to support the prison transfer, which may have encouraged Libya to finalize an offshore drilling deal with BP. (...)
ReplyDeleteWell, they did that, didn't they? In 2007. It had bugger-all to do with the decision to grant compassionate release, taken in 2009, but why let the facts stand in the way of a good story?
I suppose there could be a remote connection. Tony Blair seems to have promised Gadaffi in May 2007 that the prisoner transfer would happen. Then he couldn't deliver, thanks to a certain election result. I could quite imagine Brown was quite keen on delivering on the promise, if belatedly, in 2009.
So at the very least, Westminster kept very very quiet about the whole thing, publicly, while Kenny MacAskill was making up his mind. Let's not say anything to put him off the idea....
In fact, maybe they helped. Maybe Hillary should be asking whether the release of Ronnie Biggs was down to the BP oil deal! Releasing Biggs did give the Scottish government a nice precedent when coming to a decision about Megrahi.
Biggs is still alive too, of course.