Libya jail swap deal clears way for BP project

The Financial Times of 31 January 2008 contains an article under this headline by Dino Mahtani in London and Andrew Bolger in Edinburgh asserting that Libya’s ratification of a $900m oil exploration contract with BP was delayed because of Libyan concerns over the position of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi under the prisoner transfer agreement negotiated with the UK government.

The exploration contract was apparently part of a package of agreements arranged by the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on an official visit to Libya last year. But ratification of BP's deal had been left hanging for months, with Libyan negotiators saying they were angered that Mr Blair had left open the possibility of excluding Megrahi, the Libyan jailed for his part in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, from a deal to repatriate Libyan prisoners held in British jails. But, in spite of a request from the Scottish Government for the specific exclusion of Megrahi from its terms, the agreement as finally concluded does not make him an exception. This provoked anger in the Scottish Government and Parliament, politicians there accusing London of ignoring Scottish legal procedures in order to smooth relations with Libya.

However, the article refers to Westminster sources as insisting that safeguards were in place to give Scottish ministers a veto over whether Mr Megrahi would return. It also quotes Saad Djebbar, a London-based lawyer who has worked with the Libyans on the Lockerbie case as saying: "The matter of Megrahi had delayed matters, not just for BP but all other commercial arrangements." He said that Tripoli had been waiting for a sign of "goodwill". BP denied there were political reasons for the delay to ratification of the deal.

See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/703dc9e4-cfa0-11dc-854a-0000779fd2ac.html

Megrahi PTA was 'reward' for Libya’s WMD removal

[This is the headline over a long article published today on the Newsnet Scotland website. It reads in part:]

A former advisor to Tony Blair has claimed that the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) drafted by Blair and Col Gaddafi in the ‘deal in the desert’ was a 'reward' for Libya having given up its nuclear weapons.

The claim was made by John MacTernan who is a former special adviser to Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy and who was Tony Blair’s political secretary at the time of the secret deal.

Mr MacTernan denied that the PTA was related to the BP oil deal signed that same day saying: “The Prisoner Transfer Agreement was a deal, but it was a deal to recognise the fact that Gaddafi had given up his nuclear weapons.

“If the price for Libya giving up nuclear weapons was that Megrahi served his sentence and died in a Libyan jail the British government would have been happy with that”. (...)

[There follows a long account of UK and US dealings with Libya that culminated in the announcement that both countries were satisfied that Libya's nuclear weapons programme had been dismantled. The article continues:]

The claim by Mr MacTernan that the PTA was recognition by the UK of Libya’s removal of her WMDs may be partly true. However it seems unlikely that the UK government would offer the return to Libya of the UK’s most infamous mass murderer (victims mostly American) and seek nothing in return.

The question is though, is there anything that links Libya's abandonment of WMDs, the 'deal in the desert' and the signing of the BP oil contract?

Well yes, in the shape of another key player Sir Mark Allen.

Sir Mark was in charge of the Middle East and Africa department at MI6 until he left in 2004 to become an adviser to BP.

The former Oxford graduate is also the man credited with helping to persuade the Libyans to abandon their development of weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

It is known Sir Mark lobbied then justice secretary Jack Straw to speed up negotiations over the prisoner transfer agreement 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.

Mr Straw 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."

If Mr MacTernan’s ‘nuclear’ bombshell was an an attempt at diverting attention away from BP’s involvement in the deal in the desert it hasn't succeeded. It has served only to invite scrutiny of the UK, US, Libyan negotiations from December 2003 and draw attention to the very close diplomatic relations that were ongoing.

Far from separating the PTA from the BP contract, Mr MacTernan's statement seems to have drawn them closer together.

US Senate committee backs down over plans to call Tony Blair over Lockerbie bomber release

[This is the headline over a report on the Telegraph website. It reads in part:]

The US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber appears to have mysteriously backed down over plans to call Tony Blair to testify.

The committee seemingly drafted a letter to ask the former Prime Minister to appear before it but this was never sent.

It remains unclear if a genuine error was made somewhere in the Senate. The committee may have decided that it was too controversial to ask him

Frederick Jones, communications director for the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Mr Blair was not and will not be an invitee.”

He added: “I deeply regret any confusion this may have caused. We still have to get to the bottom of this.”

Jack Straw, the former Justice and Foreign Secretary, has been asked to appear next week before a US Senate committee investigating the possible role of BP in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. (...)

Senators have written to Mr Straw asking him to the hearing next week along with BP executives and members of the Scottish devolved administration.

BP, which has won contracts in Libya, has admitted it lobbied Mr Straw in 2007 to introduce a prisoner transfer agreement with the North African state.

Senators are focusing on the relationship between Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 official who helped BP to win the valuable contracts. Sir Mark has also been asked to appear.

He became a special adviser to BP and had at least two telephone conversations with Mr Straw to discuss the prisoner transfer deal. He also had meetings with Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Mr Straw said last night: “I have no objection in principle to explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Indeed, I have done so on a number of occasions before the United Kingdom Parliament.

“However, before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office.

“It is, in my experience, highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state, including, as in this case, decisions by a devolved administration on the release of a prisoner.”

[An amusing piece on the "phoney letter to Tony" appears on the Sky News website.

For the current state of play on who will attend the Senate committee's hearing, see "Will anybody attend the US Lockerbie hearing?" on The First Post website.]

The Libya investment firm and the release of the Lockerbie bomber

[This is the headline over a report on the Telegraph website. The following are excerpts.]

The terraced house just around the corner from the American embassy in London looks like most in the affluent street. Tall and elegant, only the shiny brass plaque gives a clue to what lies beyond the black front door.

The name reads Dalia Advisory Limited, a company established by Libyan businessmen just a week after the country's officials were told the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was being considered for release on compassionate grounds.

Dalia Advisory is in fact a "front" for the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), a sovereign wealth fund with £80 billion, to invest in Britain and beyond. The Georgian town house, bought for £6 million, is, ironically, only a few yards from the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Senior business sources have told The Sunday Telegraph that had Megrahi died in a British jail, the LIA would have taken its vast sums elsewhere. "If Megrahi had perished in Scotland, we would have become a pariah state as far as the Libyans were concerned," said one source.

Oliver Miles, a former ambassador to Libya and now deputy chairman of the Libyan British Business Council, said: "At the time of his release everyone knew that if he died in a Scottish jail, it would be bad for our relations." (...)

However long Megrahi now survives, the fact is business between Britain and Libya is currently booming. British exports to Libya are now double what they were a year ago while imports from Libya have risen three fold. In the first two months of this year alone, the UK exported £110 million of goods and services.

In Washington this week, the timing of the establishment of Dalia, run by an associate of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's favourite son Saif, will come under the scrutiny of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a wide-ranging hearing into the release.

Angry US politicians and victims' families are convinced that Megrahi – convicted of the murder of 270 people, 189 of them Americans, when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Dec 1988 – was allowed home to ease oil and business deals between Libya and Britain.

There is particular focus on the role of BP, already on America's most hated list because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In the US, the company is prime suspect in masterminding the release – although the British and Scottish governments and BP have all denied this.

And US-British relations are heading for a fresh crisis over the Megrahi affair as it appears that none of the five invited British witnesses will attend Thursday's hearing. (...)

BP is to expected to send a senior executive but not the two men requested by senators – Tony Hayward, the beleaguered chief executive who may be about to leave the company, and Sir Mark Allen, the former MI6 agent who acted as a go-between for British and Libyan authorities. (...)

Speaking in a personal capacity, Mr Miles believes the American senators are conducting a "kangaroo court". He said: "They have already decided BP are guilty but they haven't got any evidence to say that." (...)

American anger is only compounded by the tone from Tripoli. Megrahi's wife Aisha, a schoolteacher, said: "Abdelbaset was a political prisoner who paid with ten years of his life to support his country. Libyans are perfectly right to celebrate his return to his family." And his eldest brother Mohammed added: "The public response is not a political one, but a show of support for someone who is much loved." (...)

Dalia was incorporated, according to Companies House records, on July 14 last year. A week earlier, at a meeting between Scottish and Libyan officials, Mr MacAskill first discussed the possibility of Megrahi being released on compassionate grounds rather than under PTA. [Note by RB: This wording gives the impression that, out of the blue, Kenny MacAskill raised the possibility of compassionate release with Libyan officials. This is arrant nonsense. The compassionate release option had been discussed in the media and was familiar to Libyan officials long before their meeting with Mr MacAskill.] BP's lobbying for the PTA – which was holding up ratification of a Libyan oil exploration deal – is at the centre of the US senate hearing next week.

Money and US politics conspire in bid to link BP with Megrahi

[This is the headline over a column in today's edition of The Scotsman by commentator George Kerevan. It reads in part:]

Why has the mighty US Senate Foreign Relations Committee decided to open investigations into BP and the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi? Why did it demand the appearance of Kenny MacAskill, BP chief executive Tony Hayward, Jack Straw and even David Cameron for questioning?

Actually, the mighty US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is not particularly interested in this subject. What happened is that a couple of Democratic members of the committee, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, asked the chairman, ex-presidential candidate John Kerry, if they could hold a single day's hearings as a publicity stunt. The patrician Kerry agreed as a favour.

It should be no surprise that Senate Democrats are giving BP a public kicking and trying to stage television-friendly Senate hearings on the emotive subject of Megrahi. For November sees crucial midterm elections in which the Democrats are predicted to do badly. The latest polls suggest they will lose seven Senate seats, 30 House seats and ten governorships.

Four Democratic senators are pushing the implausible allegation that BP and the former Labour government influenced Kenny MacAskill to let Megrahi go. As well as Menendez and Gillibrand, the quartet includes Charles Schumer, from New York, and Frank Lautenberg, from New Jersey.

Only a third of the Senate is up for re-election but, crucially, that includes both New York seats, which explains why Schumer and Gillibrand are being so outspoken. Also, the New York State upper house is under threat from the Republicans. Ditto in New Jersey, where the Republicans won the governorship last year.

Who are these four senators and what is their personal agenda? [There then follows a lengthy exploration of the murky backgrounds of the four. The article concludes:]

I commiserate with those families who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie massacre. Rather than playing political games for election purposes, I think there should be a genuine inquiry into who really did the bombing. Perhaps the US and British governments would like to open their secret files and tell us what they know.

[The website of USA Today contains an editorial headed "Our view on Lockerbie bomber: The terrorist who didn't die leaves a trail of red faces" and a condensed version of Alex Salmond's letter to Senator John Kerry under the heading "Opposing view on Lockerbie bomber: A good-faith decision".]

Libyan oil official: Lockerbie wasn't part of BP talks

[This is the headline over a report on the CNN website. It reads in part:]

A top Libyan oil official on Friday denied allegations of an agreement to free the Lockerbie bomber in exchange for bolstered BP commercial interests in the country.

Britain and Libya had sparred over whether Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi should be included in a prisoner transfer agreement the two nations were negotiating. Under the agreement, Libyan prisoners in Britain would be transferred to Libya to serve out their sentences.

British officials and BP said the oil company's interests -- mainly, seeking a huge deal to drill for oil in Libya -- were a consideration in those talks.

In the end, al Megrahi was included in the transfer agreement, but he was never transferred to a Libyan jail. Instead, he was freed on what officials in Scotland said were humanitarian grounds separate from the agreement. (...)

"I was leading the negotiations on BP," said Shokri Ghanem, chairman of the National Oil Corp of Libya, [and a former prime minister] in an interview Friday with CNN's Richard Quest.

"I was the person who was negotiating the technical [points] and the whole agreement" for the oil company to drill off the Libyan coast, he said. "I never spoke on any political [issues], not did I accept any political interference."

Ghanem insisted Friday that the oil agreement was ratified in 2007 -- two years before al Megrahi's release. (...)

Earlier Friday, Britain's ambassador to the United States, Nigel Sheinwald, said the government believes it was wrong to let al Megrahi out of prison in August 2009 and return to his native Libya, but it was a decision taken by the Scottish executive, not the British government. Scotland has its own government that is responsible for most of the day-to-day issues there, including the justice system. (...)

The ambassador's statement came a day after the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced it will hold a hearing July 29 to examine whether BP may have played a role in lobbying for al Megrahi's release.

Ghanem dismissed the announcement as political posturing. "The US can do any hearing they want, this is their business," he said. "But we're a sovereign country. ... American Congress can do whatever they want, but senators, they have to give the impression they are US senators."

MacAskill accuses his critics of hypocrisy

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

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill yesterday accused UK governments both past and present of hypocrisy after high-level condemnation of his decision to allow the man convicted of Lockerbie bombing to return home to die.

MacAskill said he would not apologise for freeing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, despite the fact that he has long outlived the medical opinion that he had only three months to live at the time of his release 11 months ago.

In an interview in yesterday’s Herald, David Milband, the former Foreign Secretary, said the decision to free Megrahi was wrong.

Responding, MacAskill stood by his decision to sanction the return of Megrahi to Tripoli on compassionate grounds, stressing that the Scottish Government was the sole opponent of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) between the UK and Libya.

The PTA followed the Deal in the Desert struck between Colonel Gaddafi and Tony Blair, which paved the way for BP to invest £450 million in exploring Libya’s vast oil reserves.

MacAskill said yesterday that Miliband was part of that government and should explain the details of the PTA to US senators, adding that the PTA was opposed by neither David Cameron nor William Hague at the time. He added: “I think there is a great deal of hypocrisy. If they are so opposed [to Megrahi’s release], why didn’t they oppose the PTA? At the end of the day, the only people to oppose the PTA was the Scottish Government. I don’t recall William Hague condemning the PTA.”

BP has admitted lobbying the British government in 2007 over a PTA with Libya, but denied specifically discussing Megrahi.

MacAskill said: “There are considerable questions that American senators are entitled to ask the UK Government but I can give every body a complete assurance that oil had never been a factor in my decision.

“There was before me an application for compassionate release to allow him to go home. We balance justice with mercy in this country.”

The Justice Secretary said he would be happy to assist US investigators if requested, but added that it was down to David Miliband and his colleagues to set out what they were doing “cavorting with Gaddafi.”

“There are questions about BP and the US Government. They are questions that I can’t answer. They are questions that David Miliband can answer.”

[An opinion piece by Brian Currie in the same newspaper headed "Just what don’t they get about devolution?" reads in part:]

What is it about devolution that Westminster politicians don’t understand?

After 11 years, it should be reasonable to assume even the most small-minded Little Englanders would know Scotland can make big decisions on its own.

But the message hasn’t penetrated some of the more obdurate minds of their Scottish colleagues in the Commons.

Comments by the hitherto unknown backbencher Daniel Kawczynski on the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing suggest that the Scottish justice system and those in charge of it are somehow answerable to Westminster. Kawczynski was educated at Stirling University but perhaps he doesn’t realise the extent of the Scottish Government’s authority and maybe he is unaware that Scotland has its own judicial system.

But as chair of Westminster’s all-party committee on Libya he should know there have been two inquiries into the decision by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

A Scottish Parliament inquiry and another by Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Select Committee were clear in their conclusions, yet Kawczynski has written to David Cameron asking for Scottish Ministers to be held to account. Since Cameron can’t do this, perhaps he’s just trying to catch the PM’s eye in the hope of promotion.

It seems odd that a man who called for Megrahi to be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip chairs a committee whose aim is to promote and understand the culture, history and politics of Libya and engage in relations between that country’s legislature and the UK’s.

Some leeway, but not much, can be granted to the US Senators holding a hearing into whether there was a link between Megrahi’s release and BP oil deals. But they, too, should be better informed about what devolution means. America is a federal country and different states have different powers, the ultimate being the death penalty.

The Senators should surely grasp the concept of devolved powers and be able to distinguish between Prisoner Transfer Agreements between Westminster and Libya and the compassionate grounds on which the Scottish Government’s Justice Secretary based his decision. (...)

More than 50 US companies are reported to have signed contracts with Libya compared to four from the UK and the smell coming from the States isn’t just oil pollution – it’s the reek of hypocrisy.

It is also faintly nauseating to see the Prime Minister, his Foreign Secretary and Labour leadership favourite David Miliband queue up to blame MacAskill for releasing Megrahi. Would the decision have been different had it been made in Whitehall or would the interests of big business and the economy have resulted in the same outcome?

MacAskill had an enormous decision to make when considering whether to free the man convicted of murdering 270 people and the debate over whether he got it right or wrong remains the focus of controversy. In all the debate it seems to have been forgotten that people suffering from cancer are not given a set date on which to die and MacAskill acted only after considering the medical evidence that Megrahi had around three months to live.

Most importantly, however, the decision was taken in Scotland by a Scottish Government Minister and whether they sit in the US Senate or in the Commons, politicians should respect that because that is devolution in action. In this area Scotland is subservient to no-one.

[A Reuters news agency report contains the following comments from Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond:]

"We had no contact with BP either written or verbal or any lobbying of that kind as far as the process of compassionate release was concerned," Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond told BBC Radio 4. (...)

Salmond, who leads the pro-independence Scottish National Party and heads a minority government in Scotland's dissolved assembly, defended the decision to release Megrahi.

"You can only take a decision based on information at the time. It is not unheard of for people released on compassionate grounds to live longer than the estimated three months."

Salmond criticized former Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying he was negotiating on prisoner exchanges with Libya at the same time as discussing business deals in 2007 in what the Scottish leader called a "tainted process."

"I think it was deeply unfortunate that you should negotiate a prisoner transfer agreement on a judicial matter on the same day that you sign an agreement on oil exploration and concessions," Salmond said.

"But that's what the then Prime Minister Tony Blair did in June 2007." Blair visited Libya in late May 2007, a few weeks before he stood down as prime minister to be replaced by party colleague Gordon Brown. (...)

The agreement took effect in April 2009 but the Scottish authorities did not use it when releasing Megrahi, a fact that Salmond said proved there was no conspiracy.

"A lot of people would have wanted the Scottish government to invoke the Prisoner Transfer Agreement. If we had done then the U.S. Senators who are arguing for this conspiracy on economic and oil concessions would have something to go on," Salmond said.

[A similar report on The Scotsman website can be read here.]

SNP under pressure as Obama demands answers on Megrahi

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

Barack Obama has called for all the facts to be made public about the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as he piled more pressure on the Scottish Government by describing its decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi as heartbreaking for the victims’ families.

The US President told a White House press conference: “All of us here in the US were surprised, disappointed and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber … We welcome any additional information that will give us insights and better understanding of why the decision was made.”

With David Cameron, on his first prime ministerial trip to Washington, standing beside him, Obama added: “The key thing here is we have got a British Prime Minister who shares our anger over the decision and also objects to how it played out … The bottom line is that we all disagreed with it. It was a bad decision.”

Earlier, Cameron, having rejected calls for a UK public inquiry into the release of Megrahi, announced he had asked Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, to launch a full review to see if any more documents could be published to give clarification and said that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would be consulted. (...)

Last night, the SNP Government, under intense fire, stood its ground and launched a thinly veiled counterattack against Washington and London.

A spokesman said: “The Scottish Government has already published all relevant information where we had the necessary permission to do so.

“The US authorities did not give us permission to publish their communications with the Scottish Government and the UK Government also requested non-publication of some correspondence.”

He stressed there was a difference between the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) negotiated by the British and Libyan Governments and compassionate release, a “totally different process based on entirely different criteria”. (...)

With BP still dominating headlines in America because of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, Cameron sought to allay US suspicions that the oil giant had a role in Megrahi’s release, saying: “That was not a decision taken by BP, it was a decision taken by the Scottish Government.” (...)

However, among the documents Sir Gus might look at are details of telephone conversations in late 2007 between Jack Straw, the then justice secretary, and Sir Mark Allen, a BP lobbyist who argued for a swift PTA between London and Tripoli.

At the time this could have led to Megrahi’s release from his Scottish jail – and helped the firm’s commercial interests.

The oil company has subsequently admitted its lobbying was aimed at Libya sealing a deal on drilling rights but has stressed that Sir Mark, a former MI6 agent, did not specifically lobby for Megrahi’s release.

At the beginning of this year, Straw turned down a Freedom of Information request to release details of his calls with BP. Last night, one Whitehall source told The Herald: “These documents could be the smoking gun.”

Cameron: ‘Megrahi should have died in jail’

[This is the headline over a report on the STV News website. It reads in part:]

David Cameron has said Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi "should have died in jail".

The Prime Minister made the comments as he sought to calm renewed criticism in the United States of his release amid fresh questions over the role played by oil giant BP.

Mr Cameron, making his first official visit to Washington since taking office, said the decision to free al-Megrahi had been "profoundly misguided" but denied that the beleaguered oil giant had been in any way involved.

Earlier, No 10 said that Mr Cameron had now agreed to meet a group of US senators who are pressing for a new investigation into the case.

Previously, officials had said that Mr Cameron was unable to find time for talks with the senators in his "very full schedule" and had instead offered them a meeting with the British ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald. (...)

During a radio interview in Washington, he said: "I will say to them (the senators) that I agree that the decision to release al-Megrahi was wrong. I said it was wrong at the time.

"It was the Scottish Government that took that decision. They took it after proper process and what they saw as the right, compassionate reasons. I just happen to think it was profoundly misguided.

"He was convicted of the biggest mass murder and in my view he should have died in jail. I said that very, very clearly at the time; that is my view today.

"Of course BP has got to do everything necessary to cap the oil well, to clean up the spill, to pay compensation. I have met with BP and I know they want to do that and will do that.

"But let's be clear about who released al-Megrahi... it was a Government decision in the UK. It was the wrong decision. It was not the decision of BP - it was the decision of Scottish ministers."

[So much for the "respect" that the Tories said would characterise the new government's dealings with the Scottish government (and other devolved administrations). So much also for the policy of building bridges to the Libyan regime.]

BP boss again rejects US Senate request to appear at Lockerbie hearing

[This is the headline over a report on the website of The Tripoli Post, Libya's English language daily newspaper. It reads in part:]

The outgoing chief executive of BP has refused US officials' requests to appear at a hearing next month over the release of the Libyan man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

Tony Hayward told Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, in a letter that he is focusing on ensuring a smooth transition of leadership at the company and will be unable to testify.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is looking into whether the British-based oil company had sought Abdelbaset Al Megrahi's release to help get a $900 million exploration agreement with Libya off the ground.

In the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, Mr Hayward noted that UK and Scottish officials said they found no evidence that BP played a role in Al Megrahi's release.

He said BP has nothing to add to those statements. (...)

Al-Megrahi, a Libyan citizen, unfairly served twelve year of a life sentence as a result of miscarriage of justice when a Scottish make-shift court unjustly accused him of involvement in the Dec 21, 1988, bombing, which killed all 259 people on board, most of them Americans, and 11 people on the ground.

In August of last year, Scotland's government released the cancer-stricken man on compassionate grounds and he returned to Libya.

For reasons unclear yet the US Senate is putting much pressure on Britain and Scotland, and with no respect to this state's sovereignty, as to persecute [sic] their former and current officials who may have any relation with the release of the Libyan man from prison.

Libya 'granted oil concessions to BP on understanding Lockerbie bomber Megrahi would return home'

[This is the headline over a report published this morning on The Telegraph website.  It reads in part:]

Libya's former foreign minister has said that Tripoli granted massive oil concessions to BP on the understanding the Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, would be returned home.

Abdulati al-Obeidi told the BBC that Britain had accepted Libyan indications that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release was an unwritten quid pro quo of the multi-billion pound contract. 

“There was a hint that releasing him would help but it was not a condition,” he said. “The Libyan side, and you know the British, they know how to take things”

Asked if an exchange of the prisoner was part of the talks, Mr Obeidi said: “This is what I think”.

BP secured one of the largest contracts to exploit Libyan oil reserves after Col Gaddafi’s regime came in from the cold. The contract was celebrated as part of Tony Blair’s infamous Deal in the Desert trip to Libya.

Last year BP admitted it pressed for a deal over the controversial prisoner transfer agreement amid fears any delays would damage its “commercial interests”, but denied it had been involved in negotiations concerning Megrahi’s release.

[Here is what I wrote on this blog on 28 January 2010:]

According to Jack Straw "the Libyans understood that the discretion in respect of any PTA application rested with the Scottish Executive." This is not so. In meetings that I had with Libyan officials at the highest level shortly after the "deal in the desert" it was abundantly clear that the Libyans believed that the UK Government could order the transfer of Mr Megrahi and that they were prepared to do so. When I told them that the relevant powers rested with the Scottish -- not the UK -- Government, they simply did not believe me. When they eventually realised that I had been correct, their anger and disgust with the UK Government was palpable. As I have said elsewhere:

"The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" in May 2007, and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement, was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.

"It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that [it belatedly sunk in] that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh, and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away."

[Among the Libyan officials with whom I discussed this matter at the time were Abdulati al-Obeidi, Moussa Koussa and Abdel Rahman Shalgam.

Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm has published a news item on this issue which can be read here.]

Mr al Megrahi is alive and there is nobody to blame

[This is the headline over an article by Libyan political analyst Mustafa Fetouri published today on the website of The National, a newspaper based in Abu Dhabi. It reads in part:]

It has been nearly a year since the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, declared his decision to release Abdelbaset al Megrahi, the only person convicted for the downing of Pan-Am flight 103 in 1988. He was released on compassionate grounds, as Mr al Megrahi was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

August 20 also happened to be the day of the Libyan Youth Festival, an annual occasion celebrated by large crowds of young people in the capital Tripoli, where Mr al Megrahi’s plane landed. The crowds received news of his landing and they rushed to the airport to greet the man most of them believed to be innocent.

The tarmac was already filled with his extended family and members of his tribe, some of whom had been waiting since dawn to see their beloved son and to once again prove to themselves that he was innocent. The United States was angry at the “huge” welcome Mr al Megrahi received.

Flashback to 2007, the height of the effort to normalise relations between Libya and the UK: Tony Blair, the UK’s former prime minister, and Muammar Qaddafi oversaw a deal between British Petroleum and Libya’s NOC worth $US900 million. The deal effectively conceded oil exploration rights to BP just off the Gulf of Sirte, Mr Qaddafi’s hometown.

Now flash forward to May 2010: the Obama administration is shaken to the bone by the oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico. It finds itself in the very difficult position of having to balance the needs of consumers who want cheap oil at the pump with the potential environmental risks that come with drilling. US senators, worried about being re-elected, ride the wave of public anger and try to discredit BP.

In doing so, they concoct a bizarre conspiracy theory, linking the dead fish in the Gulf of Mexico to Mr al Megrahi’s release, to the Scottish justice system, to the doctors who diagnosed the cancer patient, and all the way back to 2007’s BP Libya deal. They bundle the whole thing together and throw it at Mr Obama, as well as the British prime minister David Cameron on his way to Washington.

Now, Mr al Megrahi is still alive one year after he was released from prison as a terminally ill patient with three months to live. He might not be in good shape, but he is still alive (or, at least, the Libyans have been good about keeping his health under wraps, since few have managed to see him since January).

Mr al Megrahi still insists on his innocence. If only anyone would listen – not only to him, but to an increasingly growing public opinion that includes the head of the family association for Lockerbie families, Dr Jim Swire (whose daughter was also on the flight). A number of lawyers and legal experts are also not quite convinced that Mr al Megrahi blew up Pan Am flight 103 en route from Heathrow to New York 22 years ago.

I would not be surprised if Mr al Megrahi appears in public on the first anniversary of his release; the stage is ready to receive him. The same crowds of young Libyans are celebrating this year as well on the very same date he was released a year ago. If this happens, I would guess that agitated US politicians would probably call on the United Nations to intervene and stop those mad Libyans and punish Mr MacAskill.

Mr al Megrahi is still alive: who can they blame?

It’s amazing how the conspiracy theorists managed to connect all the dots and devise a perfect theory that revolves around the quest for oil rather than the quest for human dignity and respect. (...)

Why is it so important to prove that BP may have lobbied the British government to pressure Scotland for Mr al Megrahi’s release? Mr MacAskill acted on the order of compassion, after all, fulfilling an ailing man’s last wish to die next to his ageing mother.

BP executive "helped to release Megrahi"

[What follows is excerpted from the obituary of Sir Richard Paniguian published in The Times today:]

BP executive who worked with the Intelligence services and helped to release the ‘Lockerbie bomber’

As an oil industry executive turned spy, Sir Richard Paniguian helped to negotiate the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the former head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, who had been convicted in 2001 of organising the bombing of the Pan Am plane that exploded over Lockerbie in 1988, killing 270 people.

Megrahi was released in 2009 after widespread criticism of his conviction. While the British government denied any involvement in Megrahi’s release, confidential documents suggest that it was prompted by pressure from the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in return for BP oil contracts and counterterrorism assistance.

BP admitted pushing for a prisoner transfer deal. The month after Megrahi returned home, Paniguian gave a speech in which he said that “high-level political interventions” had enhanced the prospect of arms sales to Libya.

Sir Richard Paniguian, CBE, oil industry executive and security chief, was born on July 28, 1949. He died of a heart attack on June 25, 2017 aged 67

[RB: I confess that this is the first time I have encountered this particular name in connection with Lockerbie. It is perhaps worth emphasising that it is the British Government, not the Scottish Government, that is referred to.]

US must be open on Megrahi letter

[This is the heading over a press release issued today by the SNP. It reads in part:]

The SNP called for the US Government to give its full co-operation to the Senate inquiry and to release the documents and any information over American discussions with Libya in relation to Abdelbasset Mohmed Al Megrahi.

Responding to revelations in todays newspapers of the content of US correspondence with the Scottish Government, reports of US negotiations over the Lockerbie bomber and campaign donations to the US senators involved in the inquiry from BP organizations SNP MSP Christine Grahame repeated her call for the US Government to allow the release of documents and for the Senate investigation to call the right witnesses:

“As a newspaper appears to have obtained this document it is ridiculous that the public and the US Senate Committee are unable to see it.

“At the very least the US Government must release its correspondence with the Scottish Government to its own Senate committee and lift the embargo on Scottish Government publication. Senator Menendez has asked for this document and the Obama administration must give permission for it to be released. The families of victims on both sides of the Atlantic deserve to know the full position of the US Government on this issue.

“If this senate inquiry is to be taken seriously it must ask the right questions of the right people and along with revisiting its failure to formally invite Tony Blair and his former adviser, now UK ambassador to the US Sir Nigel Sheinwald, they should ask the US government to set out what discussions it had with Libya over Mr Megrahi and if US officials were in contact or even accompanied UK officials in discussions around the deal in the desert.”

Commenting on the revelations of significant campaign donations by BP to US Senators and senior Democrats including President Obama and Hilary Clinton and by US oil companies drilling in and around Libya SNP MSP Michael Matheson said this exposed the pure politicking around what should be an incredibly serious issue.

Commenting on the revelations Mr Matheson said

"It's astonishing that after all the rhetoric and talk of BP funds as 'blood money' that those Senators attacking BP have benefited from their donations. It exposes some of the sheer political opportunism currently being played out over the tragic events at Lockerbie and in the Gulf."

We need a full Lockerbie inquiry

[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

It is unfortunate for David Cameron that his first official visit to the US as Prime Minister coincides with BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Doubly so that a deal over drilling rights for BP in Libya has been conflated with the freeing on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. As a result the Prime Minister has been caught up in a wave of anti-British sentiment founded on a massive misunderstanding of the circumstances leading to his release.

Ever since PanAm flight 103 was blown apart over Lockerbie killing 270 people nearly 22 years ago the complex background to the terror attack has spawned multiple conspiracy theories. It is therefore not surprising that Americans shocked at the release of a Libyan convicted of mass murder should link his release with an agreement over the transfer of prisoners concluded between the UK and Libyan governments a few months earlier.

Even the most cynical, however, ought to be convinced [of] the genuine anger of the Scottish Government over the “deal in the desert” between Col Muammar Gadafi and Tony Blair. The decision by the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to release Megrahi was not made under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) but entirely on compassionate grounds on the basis of medical advice that he was not likely to live for more than around three months. The fact that he has survived for much longer than expected, although remaining terminally ill, does not negate the basis on which the decision was made, which was in accordance with a legal process that has been applied to other prisoners in similar circumstances. There was never any question of trading justice for oil and Alex Salmond’s hard-hitting letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations outlining the Scottish Government’s opposition to the PTA is a necessary clarification of the basis for Megrahi’s release.

It is essential that as much documentation as possible relating to the decision to release him is made available. So far the Scottish Government has published those for which they have permission. Cameron’s decision to ask the Cabinet Secretary to review the documentation and publish what is available is welcome.

The PTA agreement, howevwer, is a different matter. BP has already acknowledged that it lobbied for an agreement but some obscurity remains over the details of the negotiations between the UK and Libyan governments. Any US senators who are not reassured by Salmond’s letter should direct their questions there.

Cameron has indicated that if any fresh concerns arise over the release he would consider an inquiry. But it is not the release of Megrahi which is at issue.

The basis of conviction is an entirely different matter. Lockerbie is unfinished business that will not end with Megrahi’s death. That can only be achieved by a wide-ranging, independent inquiry with the power to demand all the available documentation. That is what should be assessed.

[A report in the same newspaper headed "Cameron says public inquiry over Megrahi still on the table" reads in part:]

David Cameron has not ruled out a UK public inquiry into the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as pressure mounts on both sides of the Atlantic for a full investigation.

Last night, the Prime Minister insisted that while “we should not leap to an inquiry”, he acknowledged that if the forthcoming trawl of documents by Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, throws up new evidence about the circumstances surrounding Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s release, then “yes, we might have to look again” at holding one. (...)

Calls for an independent inquiry have been mounting over the past 24 hours.

Hans Koechler, the UN-nominated international observer at the Lockerbie trial, said: “The families of the victims deserve better and the rule of law requires more.

“The full truth of the Lockerbie tragedy must be known; the possible role of BP in the release of the only person convicted is only one of many aspects that would have to be investigated.”

He added the “real motives” of Kenny MacAskill had to be revealed and an inquiry should address why the Scottish Justice Secretary took the “unprecedented step” of visiting Megrahi in jail.

Asked about the criticism he was receiving from Obama and Cameron, MacAskill told Sky News: “It was a decision that they did not have to take and therefore they have the luxury of criticising it from the sidelines. I respect their judgments on a variety of matters but I had to deal with this matter holding true to the values of the people of Scotland, and that is why I stand by it.”

Professor Robert Black, Emeritus Professor in Law at Edinburgh University and an expert on the Megrahi case, called for a joint inquiry by the UK and Scottish Government.

He added that there should be a “broader inquiry into the whole circumstances, his conviction as well as his release”.

Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the 1988 bombing, has written to Senator John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will next week hold a hearing on the Megrahi case. Swire tells Kerry: “Please do not allow your determination to investigate this tragedy be thwarted by any one, it will be a tough call but we relatives have a right to the whole truth.”

In his letter to the committee chairman, Alex Salmond stresses how the Scottish Government would be willing to co-operate with any inquiry. He says: “The questions to be asked and answered in any such inquiry would be beyond the jurisdiction of Scots law and the remit of the Scottish Government and such an inquiry would therefore need to be initiated by those with the required power and authority to deal with an issue, international in its nature.”

[Yet another report in the same newspaper contains the following paragraphs:]

However, Megrahi dropped his appeal in August as he attempted to clear the way for his return home. Release under the PTA cannot be considered if there are any outstanding legal issues. However, the appeal had no bearing on his application for compassionate release, which was approved.

Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the Lockerbie bombing, said on Megrahi’s release that he would continue with the appeal on his behalf, if possible.

However, it is unlikely the appeal could move forward while Megrahi is still alive. The SCCRC would be unlikely to agree that it was in the interests of justice to proceed, when Megrahi gave up his chance to prove his innocence.

It is thought that relatives of those who died in the bombing would be well placed to take the appeal forward once Megrahi dies.

[The seven readers' letters in The Herald on the subject are well worth reading.]

Senate postpones BP-Lockerbie hearing

[This is the headline over a Reuters news agency report on the ABC News website. It reads in part:]

Senators postponed a hearing on whether British oil giant BP plc influenced the release of the Lockerbie bomber, saying on Tuesday key witnesses had "stonewalled" the investigation by refusing to appear.

Senator Robert Menendez announced the postponement of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing set for Thursday and said it would be rescheduled "in the near future." (...)

Menendez said the Senate committee had called two Scottish officials, former British Justice Secretary Jack Straw and two BP executives -- including departing chief executive Tony Hayward -- but all had declined to testify.

"It is utterly disappointing and I think pretty outrageous that none of these key witnesses will cooperate with our request to answer questions before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They have stonewalled," Menendez told reporters.

"It is a game of diplomatic tennis that is worthy of Wimbledon but not worthy on behalf of the lives of the families who still have to deal with this terrorist act and the consequences of the lost loved ones."

He said the panel would conduct a longer-term investigation of the release of the Lockerbie bomber, noting the Scottish government did offer to provide answers to further questions.

"We appreciate that and we will take them up on their offer," he said.

[The report on the BBC News website can be read here.

The Herald's report contains the following:]

Dr Jim Swire, who daughter was killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and who has protested the innocence of Megrahi, said: “Kenny MacAskill made himself pretty clear that he used compassionate release in line with Scots law and explained to the Senators that he had nothing further to add.

“I suppose it is quite embarrassing for the Senate if they have no one to testify.”

[The report in The Independent includes the following:]

Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the crash, said today that the US senators were looking at links between BP's commercial interest in Libya and the return of Megrahi.

"That's a question that if anyone from Britain could address, it would be people from Westminster," Dr Swire told BBC Radio Scotland.

"People have forgotten that there is no real link between his release and the so-called 'deal in the desert', because Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond didn't want to touch the prisoner transfer agreement which was set up in the deal in the desert."

Megrahi was eventually freed under compassionate release after medical evidence indicated the bomber had three months to live.

Dr Swire believes that Megrahi has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

"Are we not interested that the man who has been freed by Kenny MacAskill might, in fact, not be the man who was involved in causing the tragedy?" he said.

"That seems to me over-ridingly a more important question than the question of the minutiae of why he was freed.

"I can understand why they major in on those aspects of it, but I do think it's relatively peripheral."

[The Newsnet Scotland report on the issue can be read here. Newsnet Scotland's coverage of the whole saga of the US Senate circus has been exemplary.]

A view from Malta

[What follows is an excerpt from Howard Hodgson's column The world around us in today's edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.]

Not content with attempting to make a villain of BP over the Gulf oil spill in a vain attempt to deflect attention away from his own disastrous presidential performance, as I reported in June, Barak Obama has now attempted another spin trick worthy of even the ghastly Tony Blair and his hypocritical and morally bankrupt lieutenant Alistair Campbell.

America’s first mixed race President, when his politically motivated attacks on ‘British’ Petroleum failed to turn the tide of public disapproval of him, decided, instead of listening to the reasons for the disquiet, to launch another smokescreen by questioning whether perhaps BP had influenced the British and Scottish governments into releasing the convicted Lockerbie Bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

You will recall that on 21 December 1988, Pan Am 103 exploded in mid air over Lockerbie in Scotland killing some 270 people in total, a high percentage of which were US citizens.

Eventually, al-Megrahi was convicted of this atrocity, despite protesting his innocence and with many feeling that the conviction was unsafe due to the amount of conflicting and dubious evidence. He was sentenced to serve life in a Scottish jail.

Then in 2009, he was released on humanitarian grounds due to the fact that Scottish doctors said that he had only a matter of weeks to live given the terminal nature of the cancer he was suffering from.

Many Americans, not least relatives of those slaughtered, were appalled – a feeling that became more intense when al-Megrahi was still alive a year later. This was not always an emotion shared by relatives of the British victims, some of whom seemed to have studied the case more closely and were far less convinced of his guilt.

Nevertheless, as al-Megrahi was convicted in a proper court of law, one can perhaps sympathise with those who thought that he should die in prison given the nature of his crime.

Now enter stage left America’s inept President Obama, who suggests that BP had enlisted Gordon Brown’s corrupt British government to offer the release of al-Megrahi as a sweetener to Colonel Gaddafi in order to land a 900-million-dollar deal with Libya.

Therefore, a wicked British government had colluded with a wicked ‘British’ company (38 per cent US owned against 39 per cent UK owned and boasting more US employees than British by the way) to help a wicked murderer be re-united with his wicked boss Colonel Gaddafi. What a very convenient distraction despite the denials of BP and the British, Scottish and Libyan governments. But who knows the truth? Certainly not me.

“BP lobbied and the UK government jumped"

[Alex Salmond’s book The Dream Shall Never Die: 100 Days That Changed Scotland Forever has not been kindly reviewed in what in Scotland is increasingly referred to as “the mainstream media” (overwhemingly -- and, in many cases, virulently -- unionist). An even-handed, if far from hagiographic, review is to be found on the website of The Conversation. Here are two paragraphs:]

Salmond gives his version of the story of how BP intervened in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, the Scottish government’s most controversial decision during Salmond’s period as first minister.

Salmond confirms the indications in the UK cabinet office review in 2011 that BP’s intervention to protect oil contracts led to the UK government being unwilling to exclude Megrahi from the prisoner transfer agreement between the two countries. “BP lobbied and the UK government jumped,” writes Salmond.

BP says Hayward won't testify at hearing

BP has said that outgoing chief executive Tony Hayward will not testify at a US Senate hearing examining whether the British oil giant influenced the release of the Lockerbie bomber, the office of Senator Robert Menendez said on Tuesday. (...)

BP has offered to send another representative to testify at Thursday's hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be chaired by Menendez, an aide to the senator told Reuters, without giving the BP official's name.

[From a Reuters news agency report on the ABC News website.

Perhaps Sen Menendez might learn some lessons or pick up some hints from "What if you threw a party and no-one came?"]

Alex Salmond attacks senator for Megrahi deal 'insinuation'

[This is the headline over The Scotsman's report on the First Minister's latest letter to Senator Menendez. The following are excerpts:]

The transatlantic row over the Lockerbie bomber has intensified after Alex Salmond accused a US senator of attempting to "insinuate" a false link between his release and a lobbying campaign by BP, and US politicians claimed the Scottish investigations into the affair had been "limited".

In an angry letter to Senator Robert Menendez yesterday, the First Minister defended his decision to snub a US Senate inquiry into the affair as he restated his denial that the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had been linked to a lucrative Libyan oil deal.

His comments came as two US politicians sent a terse missive to the Scottish Government, complaining that receiving information in writing was not an "adequate replacement" for witnesses appearing in person and claiming that the Scottish Parliamentary inquest into the compassionate release had not been carried out by an independent investigator and had therefore been restricted. (...)

Mr Salmond said that decision had been made "on principle rather than on any issue of practicality" and claimed the most appropriate way for him to provide information to the senators was in writing.

He added: "It is difficult to envisage circumstances in which serving members of the US government would agree to appear as witnesses in hearings or inquiries held by the legislature of another country."

Mr Salmond reiterated his insistence there was no evidence of a link between the release and the prisoner transfer agreement, signed by the UK and Libyan governments shortly before BP reached an oil exploration deal with the African country.

"It was with concern I watched you attempt to insinuate such a link on BBC Newsnight on 30 July by citing a letter from Conservative Party peer Lord Trefgarne, the chair of the Libyan British Business Council, to justice secretary MacAskill last year," he wrote. "This was one of approximately one thousand representations received by the Scottish Government last year." [Note by RB: The Scotsman, for some reason, chooses not to quote the sentences which immediately follow: 'You have this letter because the Scottish Government published this last year as part of our comprehensive issue of documentation related to the decision. That being the case, you must also have seen the reply from Mr MacAskill, also published, which stated that his decisions would be "based on judicial grounds alone and economic and political considerations have no part in the process". In order to avoid any suggestion of misrepresentation, I trust that you will include that fact in future references.']

He added: "Please do not ascribe to the Scottish Government economic or commercial motives for this decision when there is no evidence whatsoever for such a claim." (...)

Later a Holyrood spokesman said questions over the justice committee's handling of the case were not for the First Minister to address.

[The same newspaper has an editorial on the issue. It reads as follows:]

It is clear from Alex Salmond's latest letter to US Senator Robert Menendez that the First Minister is, understandably, beginning to lose patience with the persistent demands and allegations levelled at Scotland from across the Atlantic Ocean.

In his latest missive Mr Salmond is fully justified in taking Senator Menendez to task over the claims the Scottish government released Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to pave the way for the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) between the UK government and Libya for which the oil company BP lobbied.

As the First Minister rightly points out, there has never been any evidence the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill took his decision to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds as part of this deal and the insinuation by the Senator in a recent interview that this was the case casts an unwarranted slur on the reputation of the Holyrood government and Scottish justice.

And as if these exchanges were not enough, the water was further muddied last night by another letter, addressed to the Scottish government, from Senator Menendez and his Senatorial colleague Frank Lautenberg which questioned the conduct of an inquiry by the Scottish parliament into the Lockerbie affair.

In response the Scottish government was right to point out that this latest Senate salvo is constitutionally illiterate. Scotland has a separation of powers between the executive arm of government and the elected body to which it is answerable. Just like America.

These latest exchanges have been sparked by the continuing controversy over what happened on that terrible night over Lockerbie in 1988: who was responsible; whether the right man was convicted; and if the PTA agreed by the UK government was linked to BP's bid for business in Libya, once held responsible for bringing down Pan Am 103, but brought into the international fold over the past decade.

In their determination to keep the issue alive - in an election period for them - the Senators are seeing matters from a narrow, US-centric, perspective and conveniently ignoring the doubts over their own country's involvement in the wider Lockerbie story.

There are still questions over the US's warship's downing of an Iran Air A300 Airbus in July 1988 in which 290 passengers were killed, and whether the supposedly retaliatory bombing of Pan Am 103 was the responsibility of Palestinian terrorists linked to Syria, and not Libyans as the US subsequently claimed.

If the Senators are serious in their search for the truth behind the Lockerbie tragedy then, with the same self-proclaimed objective of establishing that truth objectively from evidence, they might care to look a little deeper at the involvement of their own country.

But if, as we suspect, they are not interested in the wider issue and are using the deaths of hundreds of innocent people for partisan electoral purposes then the transatlantic flow of letters from Washington should cease.

In short, a period of silence from Senator Menendez and his colleagues would be welcome.

[The Herald's report, headlined "War of words escalates as Salmond rebukes US senator" can be read here.

The CNN website has a report on the news conference held yesterday by Senators Lautenberg and Menendez. I draw attention to it because of the readers' comments that follow the story. Could it be that the senatorial grandstanding is beginning to backfire even in the United States?

A further report on the CNN website now deals with the First Minister's letter to Senator Menendez.]