A (Better) Reason to Hate BP

[This is the headline over an article by Bret Stephens in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal. It reads in part:]

What Barack Obama taketh away, Moammar Gadhafi giveth. That must be the fond hope these days at BP, as it seeks to recoup in Libya's Gulf of Sidra what it is losing in the Gulf of Mexico. (...)

Yesterday, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Co told Zawya Dow Jones that he would urge Libya's sovereign wealth fund to buy a strategic stake in the troubled oil giant. That follows news that Libya will allow BP to begin deepwater drilling next month off Libya's coast as part of a $900 million exploration deal initially agreed upon in 2007. (...)

This rare patch of sunshine for BP arrives almost simultaneously with reports of another sort. Over the weekend, London's Sunday Times reported that a doctor who last year diagnosed Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi with metastatic prostate cancer and gave him three months to live now thinks the former Libyan intelligence agent "could survive for 10 years or more." (...)

Megrahi's not-so-surprising longevity is the latest sordid twist in a tale in which BP is no bystander. It begins in 2004, with efforts by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair to rehabilitate Col Gadhafi and open Libya to British commercial interests. BP inked its exploration deal with Libya following a second visit by Mr Blair in 2007. But the deal nearly ran aground after the UK took its time finalizing a prisoner transfer agreement between the two countries.

It was at this point that BP became concerned. As this newspaper reported last September, BP admits that in 2007 it "told the UK government . . . it was concerned that a delay in concluding a prisoner transfer agrement with the Libyan government might hurt" the deal it had just signed. BP also told the Journal that a special adviser to the company named Mark Allen, formerly of MI6 and well-connected in Labour Party circles, raised the transfer agreement issue with then-Justice Secretary Jack Straw, though the company also says the two did not discuss Megrahi.

On what basis (other than sheer mercantilism) would a BP adviser raise a prisoner transfer agreement with senior UK officials? I put that question to a BP spokesperson and was told I'd hear back "shortly." As of press time, I still hadn't.

As for the UK and Scottish governments, their denials that Megrahi's release had anything to do with BP and other oil interests could not be more emphatic. "The idea that the British government and the Libyan government would sit down and somehow barter over the freedom or the life of this Libyan prisoner and make it form some part of some business deal . . . it's not only wrong, it's completely implausible and actually quite offensive," said then-UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson at the time of Megrahi's release.

Yet as the Sunday Times reported last year, in 2007 Mr Straw wrote his Scottish counterpart Kenny MacAskill, the man who ultimately decided on Megrahi's release, that the UK would not exclude the Libyan from the prisoner agreement. "The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage," Mr Straw wrote, "and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed in this instance the [prisoner agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual."

Weeks later, Libya formally ratified its deal with BP, though it was again subject to bureaucratic delays until Megrahi's release. BP denied last year that the delays were anything other than routine. But the Libyans have been less than coy about the linkage: "People should not get angry because we were talking about commerce or oil," Gadhafi's son Seif said after Megrahi's release.

BP has now spent the past 11 weeks promising to make things right for everyone affected by the Gulf spill. But for the families of Pan Am Flight 103's 270 victims, things can never be made right. Nor, following Megrahi's release, will justice ever be served. The question that BP could usefully answer—and answer fully—is whether, in that denial of justice, their interests were served. It won't restore the company to honor, but it might do something to restore a measure of trust.

BP and Megrahi's repatriation

[What follows is the text of an interview by Paul Gigot with The Wall Street Journal's columnist Bret Stephens broadcast on Sunday 12 July on FOX News Channel. I am grateful to Frank Duggan for drawing it to my attention.]

Gigot: All right. Still ahead, it's under fire for the Deepwater drilling disaster, but there may be an even better reason to dislike BP. Did the oil giant profit from the Lockerbie bomber's release? The answer when we come back.

***
Gigot: Well, BP has come under blistering criticism in recent months as oil from its Deepwater Horizon well continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico. But Wall Street Journal foreign-affairs columnist Bret Stephens says there may be even better reason to dislike the oil giant, as evidence grows that BP profited from last summer's release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Bret joins us now.

So Bret, what's the connection between BP and the release of Megrahi?

Stephens: Well, just a few days ago, the Libyan government announced BP would begin deepwater drilling in its--

Gigot: Off of Libya.

Stephens: Off of the Libyan coast.

Gigot: Notwithstanding the Gulf of Mexico?

Stephens: Definitely notwithstanding the Gulf of Mexico. And in fact, that Libya might take a strategic stake in BP. Now, this follows news also in recent days that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi--the only man convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, who was released last year on the compassionate grounds that he only had a few months to live, and is still alive--might, in fact, live another 10 or 20 years. That was a statement by a doctor who offered the three-month prognosis but now says that he more or less gave that prognosis because he thought it could be, quote, "sort of justified."

Gigot: Well, let's take this in turn. This offshore drilling in Libya is very big, something like a $900 million project. So it's a very big contract. BP itself said it was something like the equivalent of 2,000 blocks, exploration blocks in the Gulf of Mexico.

Stephens: Oh, it's absolutely enormous, because these are oil blocks right off the coast, which Libya itself doesn't have the--the Libyan oil company doesn't have the technology to explore. But they need a big Western oil company that can do the kind of deepwater drilling. And the question is, how did BP get itself to get these contracts?

Gigot: Well, that is the question, because the British deny any quid pro quo between the release of Megrahi and the contracts. BP denies it, I'm sure. So what's the evidence?

Stephens: Well, look, in 2004, when Gadhafi came in from the cold, then--

Gigot: Gave up his nuclear program.

Stephens: Gave up his nuclear program.

Gigot: Said he wanted to normalize relations.

Stephens: Tony Blair paid a number of--

Gigot: Former British prime minister.

Stephens: Former British prime minister, paid a number of visits. And on his second visit, in 2007, BP and the Libyan government inked an oil-exploration deal. But there was a hiccup. The Libyans were insisting on what they call a prisoner transfer agreement between the two countries, which sounds like, you know, one of these vanilla agreements that two countries reach. But the man that was plainly in question in any kind of prisoner transfer agreement was Megrahi, the guy who was then in a Scottish jail.

So they made this agreement, and then the UK took its time with this prisoner transfer agreement. So the Libyan government starting saying, Well, we're not so sure we're going to go ahead with the BP deal. At this point, we know--BP has admitted that it raised the issue of the prisoner transfer agreement with the then Labour government in Britain. It had a special adviser who was a former MI6 intelligence official, who was well connected with Labour Party officials, and who also raised the subject of the prisoner transfer agreement. Lo and behold, at the end of 2007, the UK finally gets around to signing--to signing this agreement, and it's at that point that the BP deal starts going forward.

Gigot: We also have a statement from Gadhafi's son, who has wanted to open up to the West, and is well-known in British circles that the oil contract was at issue.

Stephens: Yeah, no, it's clear both from what--not only from what the Libyans have said, Saif Gadhafi, but also from correspondence that was obtained by the London Sunday Times, in which then-Justice Minister Jack Straw writes to his Scottish counterparts, talking about the, quote, "overwhelming interests of the UK in getting this agreement passed." And it's funny. The Libyans kept dragging their heels all the way up until Megrahi was released.

Gigot: Here's a question, though: Why shouldn't Britain do this? I mean, it's in their national interest, obviously, to have oil exploration--a company do this. Megrahi is ill. We don't know how ill, that's true. And this is 20-some years ago. Here's the question: I mean, if Gadhafi wants to come in from the cold--maybe, shouldn't we just move on?

Stephens: I would say there are 270 reasons not to do that, and those are the 270 people who were murdered on Pan Am 103. I mean, there's no question, the oil companies go into all kinds of dangerous places with regimes that we don't necessarily like, which have spotty human-rights records. But Lockerbie is a case apart. And it's also in the UK's national interest to have good relations with the United States. This was a signal case in the war on terrorism, so there was a line to be drawn, and the British crossed it, in my mind.

Gigot: All right, Bret, thank you.

We have to take one more break. When we come back, our "Hits and Misses" of the week.

***
Gigot: Just as a follow-up to that previous segment, we did ask BP for comment. They promised to get back to us but never did.

Scots defend Lockerbie convict’s release

[This is the heading over a post by Robert Mackey on The Lede, the news blog of The New York Times. It reads in part:]

Scotland’s government will not be providing any new documents on the release of the Libyan man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 to a Senate panel investigating the matter, it said in a statement on Wednesday night.

The Scottish government also declined a request from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to have Scotland’s justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, appear next week at a hearing that will look into allegations that BP might have lobbied for the return of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to Libya in order to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government. BP denies that it lobbied for Mr Megrahi’s release but said that it did press for a prisoner transfer agreement to be completed.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond wrote in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his government, which has authority over justice matters and made the decision to release Mr Megrahi last year, had already published all of the relevant documents under its control. He added: “The only significant documents that we have not published are US government representations and some correspondence from the UK government, where permission was declined. The Scottish government is, and has always been, willing to publish these remaining documents if the US and UK governments are willing to give permission for that to be done.”

Mr. Salmond also insisted that even if BP might have lobbied the government of the United Kingdom to complete a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, his regional authority was not involved in those discussions and eventually decided to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds because of a terminal illness rather than transfer him to Libyan custody. He wrote:

"My understanding is that the recent interest from the Committee and from other Senators stems mainly from concerns over any role played by BP in al-Megrahi’s release. I can say unequivocally that the Scottish government has never, at any point, received any representations from BP in relation to al-Megrahi. That is to say we had no submissions or lobbying of any kind from BP, either oral or written, and, to my knowledge, the subject of al-Megrahi was never raised by any BP representative to any Scottish Government Minister. That includes the Justice Minister to whom it fell to make the decisions on prisoner transfer and compassionate release on a quasi-judicial basis. [...]

"If your Committee is concerned about BP’s role or the [prisoner transfer agreement] then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries. There is nothing the Scottish Government can add to this since we have had no contact with BP at any point in the process of considering al-Megrahi’s position."

While outrage over the release of Mr. Megrahi in the United States has returned to the headlines with the new focus on BP, continued doubts about his guilt by some legal experts and family members of the victims of the bombing in Britain have led them to call for “an inquiry into the atrocity itself.” Pamela Dix, whose brother, Peter Dix, was killed in the bombing wrote on the Guardian’s Web site that an inquiry was needed because, “The families have faced years of denials and obfuscation, as we have painstakingly sought answers to the many unanswered questions about Lockerbie. The BP issue is just another element in the shameful way in which the truth behind Britain’s biggest mass murder has been hidden.”

[The post ends with a reprise of concerns about the soundness of Mr Megrahi's conviction that had been outlined in a post on The Lede in August 2009 and quotations from Gareth Peirce's article in London Review of Books.]

BP must halt Libya wells, say senators seeking Lockerbie probe

[This is the headline over a report just published on the Bloomberg Businessweek website. It reads in part:]

BP plc should stop a planned drilling campaign in Libya while links between the oil producer and the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi are investigated, a group of US Senators said.

The London-based company has a rig in place to start a well in the Gulf of Sirte after completing a seismic survey last year. BP also plans to drill onshore in the Ghadames basin by the end of the year, Robert Wine, a spokesman for BP, said today.

BP, under political pressure to stop and clean up the worst oil spill in US history, signed an exploration agreement with Libya’s National Oil Corp in May 2007 during a visit by then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. US senators, who yesterday asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to examine whether BP helped secure al-Megrahi’s freedom from a Scottish jail to facilitate the deal, held a press conference today demanding BP stop drilling in Libya.

“Evidence in the Deepwater Horizon disaster seems to suggest that BP would put profit ahead of people,” Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York wrote in the letter to Clinton yesterday. “The question we now have to answer is, was this corporation willing to trade justice in the murder of 270 innocent people for oil profits?”

Menendez, Schumer and Lautenberg held a press conference in Washington this morning “to call for BP to suspend its oil drilling plans in Libya,” Mike Morey, a spokesman for Schumer, wrote in an e-mail.

Libya has proved oil reserves of 44.3 billion barrels, the most in Africa, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. (...)

“Libya due to start in a matter of weeks,” Wine said today in an e-mail. “Rig is being made ready, final preparations and checks are underway.” (...)

“It is a matter of public record that in late 2007 BP discussed with the UK government our concern at the slow progress in concluding a Prisoner Transfer Agreement,” the company said today.

Libya formally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie attack in 2003 and agreed to pay up to $2.7 billion in damages to families of the victims. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi finished settling claims of US Lockerbie victims with a $1.5 billion installment last year.

The country was removed from the US list of states sponsoring terrorism in 2006 after Qaddafi agreed to give up chemical weapons and compensate Lockerbie victims.

Did BP play a part in the release of the Lockerbie bomber?

[This is the headline over an article by Eddie Barnes in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday. It reads in part:]

Bob Monetti laughs sarcastically. "This is the story that never goes away, huh?" Just before Christmas in 1988, Monetti was preparing to welcome his son Richard back home. (...) But Richard never made it home.

Thirty-eight minutes after taking off from Heathrow Airport, he was murdered when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in the skies above Lockerbie.

Bob Monetti and the rest of the family drew some solace after his death from the links they formed here. "The only people who were heroes in this were the Scottish people. The people of Lockerbie were wonderful," he says. Then, just under year ago, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi - the man he is convinced killed his son - was released by Scottish ministers. His voice takes on a different tone. He sounds resigned to cynicism. "The Scots caved into the English so that these BP oil contracts could go ahead," he says. "BP does what BP does. They will make money any way they can. The thing that really has hurt is the Scottish reputation. They (the Scottish Government] have been fighting for independence and the first thing they do is cave in." (...)

The outrage felt in America last August when Al Megrahi was freed by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, on compassionate grounds has re-emerged with a vengeance. Scottish and UK ministers are once again facing accusations of having let him go for all the wrong reasons. This week, David Cameron heads to Washington for his first talks in the White House with Barack Obama, with Lockerbie one of the issues being raised. The outcry over the case suggests that the relationship between the UK and the US is no longer quite so special. (...)

The latest burst of senatorial anger over Lockerbie does not have its roots in Scotland but in the oil-filled waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Last week, BP finally plugged the leak in its broken well off the coast of Louisiana, a full 87 days after it first exploded. (...)

Halfway around the world, it emerged that Libya had given approval for BP to start a well in the Gulf of Sirt off the African coast. With awful timing, the oil firm's 2007 deal with Libya to begin exploiting the rich reserves held by the country, was finally being realised.

This was the deal, the Americans remembered, that had been linked to an agreement between the UK and Libyan government to allow prisoners including Al Megrahi to be transferred from one country to the other. BP's oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico was not the only thing about to blow. Their sense of injustice already high as a result of the BP oil spill, senators Robert Menendez, Kirsten Gillibrand and Frank Lautenberg decided to open a new front. "The question we now have to answer is, was this corporation willing to trade justice in the murder of 270 innocent people for oil profit?" (...)

Of more interest to the senators are the stories which have emerged in the UK following Al Megrahi's release about the oil firm's alleged involvement. The company reached its agreement with Libya in late 2007, in the wake of Tony Blair's historic meeting with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi - the so-called "deal in the desert". It was here that the pair first discussed, among other things, a prisoner transfer agreement. Quite what the pair actually agreed upon is still a matter of conjecture. For the Libyans, however, the terms of the deal were clear - Al Megrahi was involved. Speaking on Libyan TV last year, Gadaffi's son, Saif al-Islam Gadaffi told Al Megrahi: "In all the trade, oil and gas deals which I have supervised, you were there on the table. When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table."

BP now makes no bones that it raised the question of the prisoner transfer agreement which Libya wanted signed before the oil exploration deal was agreed. Sir Mark Allan, a former MI5 spy and a consultant for BP, lobbied former Justice Secretary Jack Straw to get the matter dealt with. A spokesman for BP said last week the firm was "concerned about the slow progress that was being made" to resolve the deal. Sir Mark contacted Straw to try to push things along. As it emerged last year, Straw was persuaded; agreeing to include Al Megrahi as part of the PTA deal. Hence the conspiracy has grown legs.

But this view of the saga has several weak points. First, as Straw himself pointed out, he never had the power to actually release Al Megrahi in the first place. So, while intelligence sources insist that Al Megrahi almost certainly came up in the Libya-UK talks, talk of a deal to release him remains fanciful, relying as it does on the improbable scenario of the UK Labour government strong-arming the SNP-led Scottish Government into doing what it wanted.

The UK ambassador to the USA, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, took the unusual step of writing to Kerry on the Senate Committee last week, urging him to effectively tone it down. "The British Government worked with British business to promote legitimate commercial interests with Libya," he wrote. "But there was no link between those legitimate commercial activities and the Scottish Executive's decision to release Megrahi."

As for that decision, no-one yet has come up with any explanation beyond the obvious one stated at the time. Despite a huge amount of correspondence being published since, there is no evidence that Kenny MacAskill was influenced by any commercial interests. He actually refused to release Al Megrahi under the terms of the prisoner transfer agreement negotiated by the British, with Alex Salmond having already made plain his opposition to it. Instead, with Al Megrahi's plea for clemency ringing in his ears, the Justice Secretary decided to show him compassion. Within St Andrew's House MacAskill's aides understand that American relatives disagree with the decision to release Al Megrahi for compassionate reasons - particularly as he remains alive. But there is frustration they are being dragged into a conspiracy in which they played no part. One senior source says: "Where were these senators in 2007 when Blair did his deal in the desert and what did they think the PTA was all about? Instead, they gave him standing ovations in the Capitol." (...)

Many come from Frank Duggan, another relative, who represents the Victims of Flight 103 group. "So the Brits are now saying it was a mistake to release Megrahi, but we didn't do it the Scots did, and that BP did lobby us but didn't mention Megrahi by name," he wrote on Friday. "Meanwhile, Gaddafi's son says we always spoke of Megrahi during the negotiations with BP. The Scots, on the other hand, say we never talked to BP, it was the Brits. And we let him go because he was clearly terminally ill. And this had nothing to do with the prisoner transfer agreement. Don't you think there are some questions to answer?"

The questions now look set to be put, with both MacAskill and Straw among those who may be called for testimony in Washington next week. But whether families such as the Monettis (...) will get the answers they have long awaited, is another matter entirely.

[The same newspaper's editorial on the subject can be read here and an article in The Independent on Sunday here.]

The Lockerbie Conspiracy

[This is the headline over a long article by Alex Massie in his blog on the website of The Spectator. It reads in part:]

First things first: it is extremely inconvenient, even embarrassing, that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is still alive nearly a year after he was released from Greenock Prison on the grounds that he was believed to have not much more, and perhaps fewer, than three months to live. Nevertheless, the fact that he has lived longer than expected does not advance or give any greater credence to the notion that there was some conspiracy designed to free him come what may and regardless of any other considerations.

Nor is there any evidence, despite recent press reports, that BP (everyone's favourite whipping boy now) played any role in Kenny MacAskill's decision to send him back to Libya. One may reasonably think, as the British government does, that MacAskill's decision was a mistake but that does not mean that, as matters were understood at the time, the Justice Secretary was either wrong or acting on behalf of other interests.

I'd go further: the fact that Megrahi is still alive does not enhance conspiracy theories, it makes them even less probable than their previous improbability suggested. But, wait, there's an oil company "involved"! And it's BP! QED!

There are two seperate issues that, unfortunately, continue to be conflated by people who ought to know better. Unsurprisingly this company includes several members of the United States Senate whose grandstanding is equalled only by their ignorance. Senators Schumer, Gillibrand, Lautenberg and Menendez have written to Hillary Clinton demanding some kind of pointless investigation into "links" between BP and the decision to release Megrahi.

Unfortunately their request is predicated upon nonsense and, for that matter, riddled with errors. Among them:

1. No "Scottish court" ordered that Megrahi be released. It was a matter for the Justice Secretary and him alone.

2. The prognosis given by Karel Sikora and the other doctors paid by the Libyan government played no part in MacAskill's decision. He never saw Sikora's report. The decision was made on the basis of reports compiled by Dr Andrew Fraser, the senior doctor in the Scottish Prison Service. These drew on the findings of at least two other independent consultants.

3. If BP really was lobbying the British government for Megrahi's "release" it was lobbying the wrong people since the British government did not have competence in this matter. Again, and evidently this still needs to be spelt out, London could no more approve Megrahi's release than could Timbuktu. (...)

John F Burns is a great journalist but the opening paragraph of his most recent New York Times report helps demonstrate why so many people remain so confused:

"The oil giant BP faced a new furor on Thursday as it confirmed that it had lobbied the British government to conclude a prisoner-transfer agreement that the Libyan government wanted to secure the release of the only person ever convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing over Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans."

But a Prisoner Transfer Agreement says nothing about releasing prisoners. On the contrary it is, as the name suggests, an agreement about transferring inmates from prison in one jurisdiction to prison in another. That is, even the Libyans weren't lobbying for Megrahi's release. They merely wanted him to be eligible to be transferred to a Libyan gaol where he could serve the rest of his sentence.

So what do we have here? Let's review the matter one more time:

1. Libya and the UK wanted to sign a PTA as part of the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

2. Libya made it clear to BP that a PTA would help BP's commercial interests in the Gulf of Sidra.

3. BP also pointed out to HMG (Her Majesty's Government) that signing the PTA would be very useful.

4. The Scottish Government was keen to exclude Megrahi from the terms of any such agreement.

5. The Libyans told London that it would be absurd to have a PTA that excluded the only high-profile Libyan in British custody.

6. Despite Edinburgh's concerns, London came around to agreeing with the Libyans and so, when signed, the PTA contained no clause excluding Megrahi from its provisions.

7. Signing the PTA most probably did help BP's commercial interests in Libya. Then again, BP's initial deal with Libya was signed in 2007 - well before any of the Megrahi business came to a head and well before there could be any consideration of releasing him.

8. So what if BP did benefit? The existence of the PTA did nothing to improve Megrahi's chances of being released. (Here I would note that Edinburgh's desire for a Megrahi Exception made little sense since the decision on his future would, as it always had been, remain a matter for Edinburgh. London gave Tripoli something Tripoli wanted badly but London did not have to give up anything in return since, again, what Tripoli wanted was not in London's gift.)

9. Libya made an application to the Scottish Government asking that Megrahi be transferred to serve the remainder of his sentence in a Libyan prison.

10. The Scottish Government considered this application and then, based in part upon its understanding that assurances had been given to the United States that Megrahi would serve his entire sentence in Scotland, rejected Libya's application.

11. Again, signing a PTA with Libya - which London was keen to do - is an entirely seperate issue from the decision to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

12. We are now in the odd position that those who think there was a conspiracy need Megrahi to live for years while those who think MacAskill made the decision honestly would be relieved if he died next week.

13. Not a single credible report has emerged disputing that MacAskill made his decision according to the medical facts as he saw and understood them at the time.

14. The fact that Megrahi has "outperformed" medical expectations says much more about medical science than it does about Kenny MacAskill.

15. If much of the press reporting is to be given credence we are asked to suppose that MacAskill would have released Megrahi come what may. This, of course, is because of BP and HMG and all the rest of it. But for this to be true we have to believe that if the doctors had said Megrahi's prostate cancer was not so serious and he'd live for another year at least MacAskill would have said, Well that doesn't matter I'm going to release him anyway and so what if this rides roughshod over both established practice and the law? I want to be a Big Boy playing on the big stage. I suggest that this is implausible.

16. For there to be a conspiracy we need to believe that two (three if you include Libya) jurisdictions were involved and that this included several government departments and the Scottish Prison Service and at least two independent consultants. And BP of course. Again, I suggest that this is not credible. For a conspiracy to have any credence you need to believe that Edinburgh was determined to release Megrahi at any or all costs. There is precisely zero evidence to support this notion.

None of this means there aren't perfectly good grounds upon which to oppose or criticise MacAskill's decision. Good people may disagree in good faith upon this question. But that's a long way from supposing that there was some conspiracy or that the medical evidence was fabricated or that BP was secretly running the entire show.

This blog's Lockerbie archive is here and, more or less, I stand by pretty much everything I wrote nearly a year ago. Megrahi's survival is inconvenient and, yes, embarrassing but that doesn't mean there was any conspiracy to release him. Nor does it in and of itself suggest that MacAskill was acting in anything other than good faith at any point in proceedings.

Yet, again, for there to have been a conspiracy you need to believe that if the doctors had told MacAskill that Megrahi would live for another year he'd have been released anyway. Never mind that, as I understand it, this would have been beyond his purview it makes no sense even if you want to believe in it.

You can certainly argue that convicted terrorists should never be released but that's an entirely different question. But cock-up - or rather the vagaries of medical prognosis - is a likelier explanation of all this than conspiracy not least because there is precisely no evidence of there being any conspiracy.

US has no records on BP and Lockerbie bomber

[This is the headline over a report from The Associated Press news agency on today's US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. It reads in part:]

A State Department official said Wednesday that a review of government records found no evidence that oil company BP sought to secure the early release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison.

The release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi last year outraged families of U.S. victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is investigating whether the British-based oil company had sought his freedom to help get a $900 million exploration agreement with Libya off the ground.

In prepared testimony, Nancy McEldowney, a principal deputy assistant secretary, told lawmakers that the State Department has "not identified any materials, beyond publicly available statements and correspondence, concerning attempts by BP or other companies to influence matters" related to al-Megrahi's release.

BP has acknowledged that it had urged the British government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, but stressed it didn't specify al-Megrahi's case. (...)

McEldowney noted that in 1998, the US and UK wrote a letter to the United Nations secretary general, outlining an agreement for al-Megrahi and another suspect, Amin Khalifa Fhimah, to be tried before a Scottish court established in the Netherlands. Al-Megrahi was convicted but Fhimah was acquitted. The letter stated, "If found guilty, the two accused will serve their sentence in the United Kingdom."

She said that back then, the US sought binding assurances that would happen, but the British countered that they couldn't legally bind the hands of future governments.

"They nonetheless assured us of their political commitment that, if convicted, al-Megrahi would remain in Scotland until the completion of his sentence," McEldowney said.

Bruce Swartz, deputy assistant attorney general, said that both the Justice and State departments stressed that al-Megrahi serve his full sentence in Scotland from the very beginning.

"This was one of the earliest issues raised by the United States in connection with the negotiations for a trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands, and the United States continued to raise it following Megrahi's conviction and incarceration," he said in prepared testimony.

Wednesday's hearing was originally scheduled for July, but senators postponed it when they couldn't get the man they wanted to testify — outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward. The company instead offered up a regional vice president for Europe.

In a letter to Sen Robert Menendez, D-NJ, this week, Hayward reiterated that BP had no involvement in al-Megrahi's release, and that "no BP witness nor document" could shed any light on the issue.

[A report on the hearing on the STV News website headlined "No evidence of Al-Megrahi deal" contains the following:]

A review of US Government records has found no evidence that oil company BP sought to secure the early release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, it has emerged.

US State Department official Nancy McEldowney confirmed that the Department had "not identified any materials, beyond publicly available statements and correspondence, concerning attempts by BP or other companies to influence matters" related to al-Megrahi's release.

She was speaking in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, which is investigating claims of a deal between BP and the Libyan and Scottish Governments to release Al-Megrahi in exchange for oil concessions. (...)

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: "With the US State Department saying that there is no evidence whatever that BP played a role in the release of Al-Megrahi, the entire basis of the Senate Committee hearing has fallen away - we have been telling them that in letter after letter, and in a meeting, for many months.

“The Scottish Government has published everything we can - except where permission was withheld by the US and UK administrations - and all of the evidence demonstrates that the Justice Secretary's decisions to reject the Prisoner Transfer application and grant compassionate release were taken on judicial grounds alone - and not political, economic, diplomatic or any other factors.

"Scottish Ministers and officials are accountable to the Scottish Parliament, and the Parliament's Justice Committee held a full inquiry into this issue - which it decided not to re-open.

"Nonetheless, Scottish Ministers have given substantial help to the Senate Committee, and the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Kerry, described the Scottish Government's contribution as 'thoughtful and thorough'.”

[The report on the BBC News website contains the following:]

Senate committee chairman Robert Menendez also suggested that there had been confusion over whether or not Megrahi had received chemotherapy prior to release.

Megrahi had indicated, and Scottish medical records seemed to confirm, that he had not had chemotherapy, Mr Menendez said.

But the senator said evidence from an unnamed Scottish official suggested Megrahi had started chemotherapy in July 2009.

Mr Menendez said that the conflicting accounts suggested Scottish government documents had been changed. [Note by RB: if Sen Menendez actually said this, then he is an even greater clown and charlatan than I had supposed him to be.]

In its statement, the Scottish government said it was a matter of public record that Megrahi was not on chemotherapy treatment in Scotland at any point.

[A report on the website of The Financial Times headlined "US says Lockerbie bomber not dying" can be read here; and a report on the Mail website headlined "Lockerbie bomber's release 'manipulated' by Scottish government to say he was close to death claim US senators as BP also blasted over affair" can be read here.]

The Sunday Herald on the BP/Megrahi furore

[The Sunday Herald contains a long article by James Cusick. The following are excerpts:]

In the current open season on oil company BP, a core of senators have switched their attentions from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to BP’s exploration deals with Libya – and allegations that the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi helped BP secure a $900 million deal.

In his visit to Washington next week, Prime Minister David Cameron will discover if the senators are merely showboating ahead of their mid-term elections or whether they are serious about dissecting the role of international diplomacy and back-stage politics in the rehabilitation of oil-rich rogue states. For one leading energy consultant in London, who has commercial ties to oil and gas companies operating in the Middle East, showboating would be the preferred option.

“If Capitol Hill really wants the full, dark picture, they’ll need to do more than call in BP to answer a few questions,” he says.

“They might start with George Bush, Tony Blair and Condi Rice. Jack Straw would help; so would Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States. As well as BP, they should talk to Shell, Marathon, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips, all of them. And, if they’ve time, Colonel Gaddafi’s son Seif and Musa Kusa, Libya’s former head of intelligence [and currently Foreign Minister]. This is a Pandora’s Box.”

Sir Nigel will be alongside Cameron in DC this week, just as he was alongside Tony Blair during his years as the British ambassador to the European Union, and later as Blair’s foreign policy adviser. Ahead of Cameron’s visit, it fell to Sir Nigel to state the coalition’s position on the release of Megrahi. “The new British Government is clear that Megrahi’s release was a mistake,” he said.

For Libyan diplomats, that will have come as a surprise. “Nigel and Tony” are regarded in Tripoli as the two figures who helped bring Megrahi home.

Operating behind the scenes and in direct contact with Gaddafi’s closest aides, it was Sir Nigel who – on Blair’s direct orders – helped broker the secret talks in 2003 between the UK and the US that eventually ended Libya’s exile and coaxed Gaddafi into ending his ambition to build a nuclear arsenal. After he and Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, had met Libyan officials, it was Sir Nigel who chaired a series of meetings in London with Libyan diplomats which sealed the deal.

In March the following year, Sir Nigel was with Blair when he visited Gaddafi’s tented complex in the desert outside Tripoli. One news paper report noted that it was 5,573 days since Pan Am Flight 103 had exploded over Lockerbie. Blair was the first British prime minister to visit Tripoli since Churchill, and his job was to confer international respectability on the Gaddafi regime and to re-open the commercial opportunities in one of the world’s least explored oil territories. (...)

Lurking in the background, however, was one unresolved issue: one that regularly presented tribal difficulties for Gaddafi in internal Libyan politics. This was Megrahi’s imprisonment in Scotland. (...)

After Blair’s meeting with Gaddafi in 2004, pressure increased on both the UK and US governments to create the necessary conditions for further commercial activity. But Megrahi was still an unresolved part of the Libyan jigsaw – and, felt many in the Foreign Office, a vital one. Quietly, the prospect of a prisoner transfer deal crept on to the ­diplomatic agenda.

Gaddafi’s son Seif has said that Megrahi’s release was a constant reference point in any trade talks. And in a meeting with Megrahi after he returned to Tripoli last year, Seif told him: “When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table.”

According to a US embassy source in London, Seif would “scare the hell out of Capitol Hill” if he gave a witness testimony. It would not be what he had to say about BP – but what he could say about anyone from any country, including the US, trying to secure new and lucrative business with Libya. (...)

When Blair eventually returned to Tripoli in May 2007 to sign the so-called deal in the desert – a major step towards Libya’s international rehabilitation – it was Sir Nigel who had designed the “memorandum of understanding”. This included, for the first time, an outline of a legal agreement on prisoner transfer. On the same day that Blair and Gaddafi shook hands, both Blair and Sir Nigel travelled to the Libyan city of Sirt to watch BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward and the Libyan National Oil Company’s chairman Shokri Ghanem sign an exploration deal worth $900m.

Hayward knew he was delivering something big for BP. “Our agreement is the start of an enduring long-term and mutually beneficial partnership with Libya,” he said. “With its potentially large resources of gas, favourable geographic location and improving investment climate, Libya has an enormous opportunity to be a source of clean energy for the world.” (...)

BP expected the prisoner transfer agreement to be dealt with quickly by Westminster. But shortly after the signing ceremony between Hayward and Ghanem – which, although it looked formal enough, was still only an outline deal – Libyan officials were told by UK lawyers that there might be a problem with returning Megrahi to Tripoli. Transfer or release of prisoners from a Scottish jail was not a matter for Number 10 but for the devolved government at Holyrood.

According to a senior UK judicial source, when the prospect of delays in any prisoner transfer was suggested to Libya, it was dismissed as nonsense. One Libyan source claimed there would be no delay; that “Nigel and Tony have assured us”. This source also believed Megrahi would be back in Libya within six months.

But BP had begun to appreciate the Scottish problem. By the late autumn of 2007, the company was said to be worried about the slow progress being made in concluding the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

Last week BP officially acknowledged this concern. “We were aware this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP’s exploration agreement,” the company said.

BP admits it lobbied the government, seeking to speed up the process of getting the transfer agreement into law. However, it denied it tried to intervene in the case of Megrahi in particular.

But Professor Black, the man who helped engineer the case at Zeist, says: “The prisoner transfer agreement and the potential release of Megrahi back to Libya have always been one and the same thing. It is disingenuous of BP to say they were different. Megrahi was always the name on the table. He was the only high-profile prisoner that mattered.”

Last year, Megrahi was released from jail on compassionate grounds by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary. MacAskill said the Libyan was in the final stages of prostate cancer and was expected to die within three months. He added that he was bound by Scottish values to release him and allow him to die in his home country. The transfer agreement – which the Scottish Government had criticised as unconstitutional because it had not been consulted – did not figure in the minister’s deliberations. (...)

The senate committee in Washington will care little about the constitutional in-fighting between Edinburgh and London. The former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has said that if Westminster had wanted to stop Megrahi leaving, it had the power to do so. “The last time I looked, Scotland wasn’t independent and doesn’t have powers over foreign policy,” said Bolton.

Although Sir Nigel says the UK Government believes the release of Megrahi was a mistake, he does not say if he thought it was mistake.

[Also in the Sunday Herald is an article by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill. It reads in part:]

My decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi last August was, as I made clear at the time and many times since, the right decision for the right reasons.

It was a decision based entirely upon the application for compassionate release that I was duty bound to consider. As I said then, it was not a decision I chose to make, but one I was obliged to make as Scotland’s Justice Secretary.

Megrahi was sent home to die according to the due process of Scots law, based on the medical report of the Scottish Prison Service director of health and care, and the recommendations of the parole board and prison governor – all of which have been published by the Scottish Government.

However, I was also faced with another, separate decision, in respect of Megrahi. That was the application before me for a transfer from Scotland under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed by the UK and Libyan governments.

I rejected that application because the US Government and the families of Lockerbie victims in the US had been led to believe such a prisoner transfer would not be possible for anyone convicted of the atrocity.

The Scottish Government has always totally opposed the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated between the UK and Libyan governments. The memorandum that led to the Agreement was agreed without our knowledge and against our wishes.

That is why we chose to reveal the secret talks between the then Labour Government and the Libyans, as soon as we learned of the “deal in the desert” between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi, with the First Minister making a statement to the Scottish Parliament on the issue as far back as June 2007. (...)

Let us be clear: the issues now being raised in the United States about BP refer to the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated by the governments of the UK and Libya, and so have nothing to do with the decision on compassionate release, which was a totally different process based on entirely different criteria.

And the Scottish Government had no contact from BP in relation to Megrahi.

We would always look to assist any properly constituted inquiry – and indeed we very much support a wider UK public inquiry or United Nations investigation capable of examining all the issues related to the Lockerbie atrocity, which go well beyond Scotland’s jurisdiction. That remains the case.

In terms of the new UK Government’s position on the Megrahi issue, we have known the Prime Minister’s opinion since last August, and he knows the due process of Scotland’s independent legal system was followed.

We also now know Professor Karol Sikora has rejected news paper reports that misrepresented his comments about Megrahi’s condition.

I said last August that Megrahi may die sooner or may die later than the three-month prognosis the experts then deemed to be a reasonable estimate of life expectancy – that is something over which we have had no control.

What is certain is the man rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing remains terminally ill with prostate cancer.

[Mr MacAskill's opinion that Mr Megrahi was "rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing" is one that many, including the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, do not share.]

Deal done to get Megrahi to drop appeal

[What follows is the text of an article that appeared on the Channel 4 News website on this date in 2010:]

How does an ex-spy link BP, Libya and Lockerbie bomber? Who Knows Who investigates the key players at the heart of a growing transatlantic rift - from deals in the desert to the boardroom, via MI6.

The only man convicted in connection with the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing over Scotland, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds. He is terminally ill with prostate cancer.

He returned home, personally escorted by Saif Gaddafi, son of Libya's leader Colonel Gaddafi, to a hero's welcome in August 2009.

The celebrations sparked fury around the world and were condemned by President Obama and then prime minister Gordon Brown. Nearly a year on, al-Megrahi is still alive in Libya and his name is back in global headlines.

Thousands of miles away in the US, a group of senators has called for an inquiry into an admission by British energy giant BP that it lobbied UK ministers to get them to speed up the signing of a prisoner transfer agreement, in order to rescue an oil deal with Libya. BP insists it never lobbied about Mr al-Megrahi personally.

The witnesses the US politicians call could include Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, former justice secretary Jack Straw, Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive, and Tony Blair.

So who sped up the process which may have led to al-Megrahi's release? What did Tony Blair agree at the "deal in the desert"? And what is the BP connection?

Shortly after al-Megrahi's return home, Britain's former "man in Tripoli" Sir Oliver Miles told Channel 4 News he believed a deal had been done between the UK and Libya, to get al-Megrahi to drop an appeal against his conviction.

The former UK ambassador to Libya said: "I think Tony Blair originally thought that he could deal with it quite simply by [sending] al-Megrahi back to Libya under the prisoner transfer agreement. It turned out it wasn't as simple as that."

One man who knows more than most about what took place is Sir Nigel Sheinwald - Britain's ambassador to the US since 2007. Once Blair's right-hand man, he has been at David Cameron's side throughout the new prime minister's first official US trip.

Sir Nigel previously served as an adviser on foreign policy to Blair. Libyan ministers and diplomats are said to refer to the "Nigel and Tony" double act.

In 2003, with US approval, he chaired the secret meetings in London with the Libyans that led to an easing of international relations with Colonel Gaddafi.

Intriguingly, Mr Cameron's coalition partner also has a connection to Gaddafi. Before entering parliament, Deputy PM Nick Clegg worked for a lobby firm called GJW. One of its clients was Libya and a key project is said to have been "improving the reputation" of its controversial leader.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald was at the heart of this rehabilitation of Libya in the eyes of the West. He was sitting next to Tony Blair at the now infamous meeting in Gaddafi's tent in 2004.

Sir Nigel was again at Blair's side in 2007 when a prisoner transfer agreement was struck. On the same day Blair looked on as BP boss Tony Hayward signed a provisional agreement over $900m gas and oil exploration rights in Libya. Both deals later stalled and al-Megrahi's ill-health was the official reason for his release.

Another key player, and a name which should interest the US senators, is Sir Mark Allen. He was in charge of the Middle East and Africa department at MI6 until he left in 2004 to become an adviser to BP.

It is known Sir Mark lobbied then justice secretary Jack Straw to speed up an agreement over prisoner transfers to avoid jeopardising a major trade deal with Libya.

He made two phone calls to Mr Straw - who later let slip Sir Mark's involvement to a select committee. He said: "I knew Sir Mark from my time at the Foreign Office - he has an extensive knowledge of Libya and the Middle East and I thought he was worth listening to."

Sir Mark, an Oxford graduate and a fan of falconry, has been credited with helping to persuade the Libyans to abandon development of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. He is said to have "charmed" Gaddafi out of his international isolation.

But has BP's influence been overplayed? Sir Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador, believes so. He says that the US senators, angry at the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, are trying to "kick BP while it's down".

He said that Libya had signed deals not just with BP, but also with Shell and ExxonMobil - the three biggest energy firms in the world.

Speaking to Channel 4 News he added: "Libya knows the only way it can achieve a boost in oil production is by bringing in the world's biggest oil companies.

"You don't have to look for any dirty business to explain why they're doing business with BP."

BP, the UK Government and Megrahi

[The following is an excerpt from an article in today's edition of The Guardian:]

Lord Jones, a government trade ambassador and former trade minister, has accused David Cameron of failing to stand up for Britain after the prime minister said he understood the US government's frustration over the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster.

BP's shares tumbled almost 7% to a 13-year low on fears that the US department of justice could block the company's dividend due next month.

Speaking to the Guardian, Jones said Cameron should have been more forthright in defending British interests, particularly pension funds, since BP's dividend traditionally makes up more than a 10th of all payouts by UK companies.

"This is not about trying to come to BP's defence but for the US to understand there are more people to blame," he said. "Pension fund beneficiaries will be saying 'Are you standing up for us Mr Cameron?' It's not 'We are hoping for a favour for BP' but '[Are you] standing up for Britain?'" (...)

BP has traditionally had a close relationship with the government. Last year it emerged that ministers had supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, following lobbying by BP which was concerned a £500m oil deal with the Libyan government was at risk.

Cameron's refusal to defend BP contrasts with calls from British business leaders and London's mayor Boris Johnson for the White House to tone down its attacks. Johnson accused President Obama's government of "anti-British rhetoric", warning that the near 50% slump in BP's share price since the spill was bad news for UK pensioners.

Senator Lautenberg asks Senate Foreign Relations Committee to investigate

BP's role in the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison is being questioned in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Sen Frank Lautenberg, who is requesting an investigation into the oil company's success in securing a drilling contract in Libya.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, won early release from prison last year after a doctor testified that he was near death and it would be compassionate to let him die a free man. But there are suggestions that Megrahi, who was given just weeks to live but is still alive and kicking, may have been the linchpin in BP's efforts to secure drilling rights in the Gulf of Sidra.

"The prospect that oil contracts between BP and the government of Libya may have affected the release, as well as new questions about the veracity of medical reports detailing Mr Megrahi’s health at the time, are disturbing developments that demand the attention of Congress, Lautenberg, D-NJ, wrote to Sens John Kerry, D-Mass, and Richard Lugar, R-Ind, the co-chairmen of the Foreign Relations Committee. (...)

The UK-based BP, which is responsible for the oil spill that has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for 85 [days], admitted that in 2007 it raised concern that a "prisoner transfer agreement with the Libyan government might hurt" the oil deal, according to Lautenberg.

Megrahi originally had not been part of the prisoner transfer, but former British Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw later cited "overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom" in including Megrahi.

BP could earn as much as $20 billion from the deal with Libya, set to begin next month.

"It is shocking to even contemplate that BP is profiting from the release of a terrorist with the blood of 189 Americans on his hands," Lautenberg wrote. "The families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103 deserve to know whether justice took a back seat to commercial interests in this case."

[From a report published today on the website of FOX News. The Senator's letter can be read here.

An article on the website of the New York Daily News contains the following:]

BP admits it had an interest in the prsioner swap, and was concerned it would derail its drilling deal, but the company insists it did push the Megrahi case.

BP spokesman Mark Salt e-mailed the following:

*It is a matter of public record that in late 2007 BP discussed with the UK government our concern at the slow progress in concluding a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya.

*Like many others we were aware that a delay might have negative consequences for UK commercial interests, including ratification of BP’s exploration agreement.

*However, we did not express a view about the specific form of the agreement, which was a matter for the UK and Libyan governments, or make representations over the al-Megrahi case, which was solely a matter for the Scottish Executive and not for the UK Government.

Clinton seeks UK explanation on Megrahi

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

Hillary Clinton last night urged the UK Government to explain to American politicians the circumstances that led to the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing after David Cameron described the decision as wrong.

The US Secretary of State, who is looking into claims from US senators that BP lobbied for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Megrahi’s release in August last year as part of an oil deal with Libya, made the suggestion in a call to Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Her spokesman said Clinton had indicated “it might be appropriate for the UK Government to communicate with Congress to make sure they fully understand ... what transpired a year ago”.

The Prime Minister said through his official spokesman that he believed it had been a mistake to free Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal cancer, repeating the view of Britain’s ambassador to Washington Sir Nigel Sheinwald.

Cameron’s spokesman said: “He has said in the past that he believes that the decision was wrong. Obviously he respects the process (that allowed the Scottish Government to release Megrahi) ... but he said at the time he thought it was wrong.”

Last night Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the tragedy, criticised the “mass hysteria” and “misunderstanding” in the US in relation to the decision to release Megrahi.

“The public attitude in the US is to seek revenge against BP and this is harming America’s image,” he told The Herald. “There is no surprise in the idea of BP lobbying the UK Government but that does not change the fact that the decision to release Megrahi was not made by the UK Government.

“I think there is a mass hysteria in the US. Pursuing this line that BP lobbied for Megrahi’s release comes perilously close to saying the UK Government somehow put pressure on Scotland to release him.”

Sheinwald had said the UK Government believed that the decision had been a mistake. He also said claims Megrahi was released because of an oil deal involving BP were not true.

Sheinwald served as Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser during the negotiations that led to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in 2007. The Herald revealed that as early as 2005 secret talks were ongoing between the UK, US and Libya to get Megrahi back to Libya. Sheinwald was present at these negotiations and helped agree the infamous deal in the desert.

The deal was denounced by the Scottish Government.

Scottish ministers released Megrahi on compassionate grounds 11 months ago because medical experts said he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and was not expected to live more than three months.

A separate application between the UK and Libyan governments under the terms of the PTA was rejected by Scottish ministers. However, US senators are angry that in 2007 BP also sealed a £590 million exploration agreement with Libya. (...)

[An editorial headed "Misunderstandings muddy the waters over Megrahi’s release" in the same newspaper reads:]

Still they do not get it. It should not be a surprise that the heightening clamour over the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is founded on a massive misunderstanding of the circumstances leading to his release.

Facts can be conflated, manipulated or simply ignored when politics come into play. Such has happened in the case of Megrahi, who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and the role of the Scottish Government in sanctioning his release on compassionate grounds some 11 months ago.

There is a debate to have, one that takes on a sharper focus the longer Megrahi lives, about whether that decision, based on a medical report taking account of the views of oncologists involved in his care, was correct. But there is no sustainable debate about BP being prepared to “trade justice for oil profits”, despite the best (or worst) efforts of certain American senators to push that line. The allegation, which cannot be separated from anger in the United States with BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has no basis in fact, unless we have all been deceived on a massive scale (of which there is no evidence).

The claim BP lobbied the Scottish Government for Megrahi’s release is based on a failure to understand.

Perish the thought that such misunderstanding might also be wilful. BP has said it pressed Tony Blair’s government over the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) with the Libyans. But that deal had nothing to do with Megrahi’s release, a decision taken on separate grounds and by different means by an SNP administration that denounced the agreement. Yet it serves a purpose to conflate the two.

David Cameron had an opportunity to clarify matters ahead of meeting Barack Obama. By repeating his contention that Megrahi’s release was a mistake (also the President’s view) hours after Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain’s ambassador to the US, affirmed that was the UK Government’s position, the Prime Minister has failed to clarify matters. Singing from the same hymn sheet on Megrahi might serve the purposes of the special relationship but Sir Nigel’s role as Blair’s foreign policy adviser during the talks leading to the PTA has added to a sense of corrosive obfuscation. The choreography has been so rehearsed that we are now told Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, and William Hague, Foreign Secretary, agree Megrahi’s release was a mistake. That will play well in America, for all the wrong reasons. But it will serve no positive or substantive purpose in this country. If you must meddle, do so on the basis of fact.

[The Scotsman runs a report headlined "MacAskill could be summoned to Washington to testify on Megrahi". It can be read here. Once again, the readers' comments outshine the article.]

Menendez at work

[This is the heading over a post by Greg Milam on the American Pie blog on the Sky News website. It reads as follows:]

British diplomats in Washington are ‘surprised’ at the rant from US Senator Robert Menendez over his aborted hearing on the Lockerbie bomber.

They had no idea that Mr Menendez was going to give the UK both barrels for, in his eyes, helping to scupper the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting this week.

Maybe Mr Menendez feels a little foolish that he so heavily advertised a hearing before waiting for replies to his witness invitations.

But his announcement of the postponement came perilously close to accusing the UK and Scottish authorities of having something to hide.

Some here have labelled what the committee is investigating as a ‘conspiracy theory’.

Pointing the finger at BP is a pretty easy way of earning popularity in the US at the moment but the planned hearing seemed to cross a line.

Here is the evidence: Scotland says the Lockerbie bomber was freed on compassionate ground.

David Cameron (who even changed his schedule to meet Menendez’s team) says he’s seen nothing to suggest BP played any part in the release.

Both parties have co-operated with the committee and sent over a stack of documents.

For these reasons, it is not surprising that the invited witnesses didn’t fancy a few hours of haranguing from American politicians when the answers had already been provided.

It would set quite a precedent for one country’s legislature to feel it can investigate decisions taken by another.

What the committee, and many Americans, don’t seem to like is that BP was lobbying the UK government at all.

But people in glass houses… Many Americans don’t like the lobbying money bunged at senators to stop, for example, healthcare reform.

If they want a clampdown on lobbying, there are a few senators who would see a big black hole appear in their campaign funding.

They might not like BP very much at the moment – but should it really be one rule for one and another for everyone else?

[And the following is from a post by David Hughes, the chief leader writer of the Daily Telegraph, on a blog hosted by that newspaper.]

BP has hardly covered itself in glory over the Gulf oil spill and, as predicted last week, at least one head had to roll before the oil company could start to draw a line under the business. But the mood is changing fast, not only because the company has shown that it can carry the truly colossal cost of this disaster without going down the tubes. It also appears that the slick is vanishing far faster than thought. (...)

It is against this rather encouraging background that we should view the shameless political show-boating of the US Senate in trying to haul BP’s departing chief executive Tony Hayward to Washington (along with former Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Scotland’s Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill) to interrogate them on whether BP lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdulbaset al-Megrahi. Wisely, all three have told the Senate to take a running jump. There is something nauseating about this continued hounding of BP by American law-makers. They live in the most oil-dependent country on the planet yet seem obsessed with kicking the companies that have to do the dirty work of getting the black stuff into their gas-guzzlers.

BP has every right to lobby in defence of its commercial interests – are American senators saying it hasn’t? But it is the job of elected politicians – in this case the Scottish Executive – to take the decisions. Perhaps members of the Senate, so used to being manipulated by lobbyists, have lost sight of that distinction. Their attempt to make political mileage out of this should be treated with the contempt it deserves

Lockerbie hearings set to open can of worms

[This is the headline over an article on the website of Canada's National Post which displays an appreciation of the facts relating to Megrahi's repatriation and of the UK/Scottish constitutional position that is sadly lacking in most US commentaries. It reads:]

A US Senate hearing into BP's alleged involvement in the release of the Lockerbie bomber may be based on a false premise, but it has all the potential to open up a can of worms.

Senior senators are demanding to know whether "justice and punishment for terrorism took a back seat to back-room deals for an oil contract." BP will be quizzed over whether they lobbied for the release of Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in exchange for trade deals.

BP has denied any such thing, but with its reputation already tarnished by the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, a Senate hearing will be another opportunity to continue to vilify the company in the eyes of Americans.

However, what is already clear is that while Megrahi was sitting in a jail cell in Scotland, his future and trade with Libya were inextricably linked.

And it is questions about that link which has the potential to cause embarrassment in some quarters.

For years, Libya had petitioned the British government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement, allowing prisoners to be exchanged and serve sentences in their home countries. As Colonel Muammar's Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, later explained, for Libya the PTA was only ever concerned with one prisoner.

He told the Scottish ... newspaper [The Herald] last year, "For the last seven to eight years we have been trying very hard to transfer Mr. Megrahi to Libya to serve his sentence here and we have tried many times in the past to sign the PTA without mentioning Megrahi, but it was obvious we were targeting Megrahi and the PTA was on the table all the time."

BP, it has admitted, was also lobbying the British government to conclude a PTA with Libya.

On Thursday, BP said in a statement, "It is matter of public record that in late 2007 BP told the U.K. government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

"We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP's exploration agreement."

In May 2007, Britian and Libya agreed to sign a PTA. The agreement was ratified a year later in November 2008, at the time British prime minister Tony Blair signed the agreement he also witnessed the signing of a major BP exploration contract in Libya worth £500-million.

Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi told [T]he Herald, "It was part of the bargaining deal with the UK ... We signed an oil deal at the same time. The commerce and politics and deals were all with the PTA."

Scotland, meanwhile, had specifically asked for Megrahi to be excluded from the PTA, but Britain refused.

Months later, in May 2009, Libya applied to Scotland for Megrahi to be transferred under the PTA. Although Britian signed the PTA -- thus paving the way for any transfers under the deal -- it was up to Scotland whether they would agree to the transfer.

But Scotland found a major hurdle in the way.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney-General Eric Holder told Scotland that the US had been given assurances before Megrahi's trial that he would serve his full sentence in Scotland. Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill asked Britain for clarification about the assurances, but the government refused to answer.

It was because of those assurances that Mr. MacAskill decided not to agree to transfer Megrahi under the PTA.

At this point, it might appear that the efforts of BP and the British government -- who had both worked so hard to get a PTA signed -- had come to nought.

However, Mr. MacAskill then released Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

If, as Mr. MacAskill was told at the time, Megrahi only had a few months to live, it appears to have been the humanitarian thing to do.

But with reports that Megrahi might yet live another 10 years, the decision to release him and the background to it are going to come under severe scrutiny at the Senate hearing. It promises to be an uncomfortable time for some people.

BP lobbied UK Government to speed up prisoner transfer agreement

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in The Evening Standard on this date in 2010:]

BP admitted today that it put pressure on the British Government to speed up talks on a deal that led directly to the early release of the Lockerbie bomber.

In a statement the oil giant said that in "late 2007" it told ministers that "we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya".

The agreement was a key piece of the complex diplomatic jigsaw that ended in the dramatic return of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi to Tripoli on compassionate grounds last August. The lobbying came after BP signed a $900 million exploration agreement with Libya in May 2007.

BP said it was aware that any delay in signing the agreement "could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan government of BP's exploration agreement".

However, the company insisted that it did not get involved in the detail of al-Megrahi's release.

It said: "The decision to release Mr al- Megrahi in August 2009 was taken by the Scottish government. It's not for BP to comment on the decision of the Scottish government. BP was not involved in any discussions with the UK Government or the Scottish government about the release of Mr al-Megrahi."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would look at requests from US Senators to investigate the role BP played in the release.

Yesterday, Mrs Clinton confirmed she had received the letter from Democratic Senators Robert Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer "and we will obviously look into it".