Thursday 6 October 2011

'Labour connived to free Lockerbie bomber' says William Hague

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Scotsman.  It reads in part:]

William Hague has unleashed a fierce attack on the former Labour government, accusing it of "conniving" in the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
He also questioned its moral stance on the international stage, in an unusually harsh critique from a foreign secretary. (...)

Singling out the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, Mr Hague added: "They connived in the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Two years ago we said the decision to release al-Megrahi was wrong, and now the whole world can see that we were right." (...)

Mr Hague's direct attack at Labour's stance on the Lockerbie bomber follows a report written by the country's most senior civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, which concluded that the Labour government did "all it could" to help facilitate the release of Megrahi in 2009.

While there was no evidence to show they had actively lobbied the Scottish Government to free him, Sir Gus concluded there was an "underlying desire" to see him return to Libya.

He said the information showed UK ministers had changed their position on the transfer of Libyan prisoners due to commercial considerations, including lobbying by oil firm BP.

The Libyans have subsequently claimed Megrahi's fate was "on the table" in the infamous "deal in the desert" conducted by Tony Blair and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2007.

In their defence, Mr Blair and former justice secretary Jack Straw have insisted that their dealings with the former Gaddafi regime helped to persuade him to end his weapons development programme.

He added: "As all the published documentation demonstrates, only the Scottish Government played with a straight bat on this matter."

3 comments:

  1. Dear Professor
    The more that comes out, the more utterly heinous this god forsaken saga seems to be. God help the families and Mr Megrahi for all of them have been subject to the most appalling suffering inflicted on them by an assorted, self-interested gang of manipulative liars across the different branches of the international establishment and their voice-pieces.

    Perhaps, some internationally neutral tribunal - akin to that of Nurenberg - needs to be established in order to range uninhibited in their investigations and call all concerned into their court and subject all involved to the transparent scales of justice (nothing redacted or dodged)?

    As things stand, we all stand drookit- covered with the faeces of troughing pigs rooting about their slurry.

    God help us all.

    Kindest
    David

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  2. How utter pathetic and typical of today's "politicians", to bitch about who did what in the past rather than focus on doing the right thing.

    I have asked Mr Hague to comment on why the previous Conserative Government and the USA Government "connived" to reject Libya's request to try the suspects in accordance with the Montreal Convention way back when. I suspect he will see things differently.

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  3. Labour certainly "connived". But the fact that the SNP, sorry, Scottish Government, co-operated helped enormously. Especially when that Justice Minister of theirs banned the SCCRC from publishing its report about the grounds of Megrahi's appeal.

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