I have a burning desire to clear my name

[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined The Megrahi dossier: why he was set free that was published in The Herald on this date in 2009:]

The Greenock visit

One question mark that remains relates to Mr MacAskill's decision to visit Megrahi in Greenock Prison. An eight-page document by a senior civil servant in the justice department advises the minister: "Mr Megrahi, as a subject of the transfer request, should be given opportunity to make his own representation on the proposal."

That advice concludes with the recommendation: "The groups and individuals identified should be offered short meetings with you to present their representations."

That Mr MacAskill inferred from this that he should go to meet the prisoner at Greenock is still being challenged by opponents, but the advice appears sufficiently robust to entitle him to say he was acting on advice.

There are then two documents relating to the meeting at HMP Greenock on August 6 - the official minute from the government side and Mr Megrahi's own handwritten note of his presentation to the meeting. (...)

The minute records, in dry official language, the prisoner's insistence that he had been unjustly convicted and his sympathy for the "terrible loss" of the victims' families. The minute adds, as Megrahi told The Herald in Tripoli last week: "He feels there is little prospect that his appeal will be concluded before his death, and that his dreams of returning home cleared no longer exist."

While the minute records Mr MacAskill advising Megrahi that prison transfer could only take place if there were no court proceedings ongoing, there is no specific mention that compassionate release would not require this. However, aides pointed out last night that the meeting was specifically about prisoner transfer, not compassionate release.

The handwritten note from Megrahi states: "I'm a very ill person. The disease that I have is incurable. All the personnel are agreed that I have little chance of living into next year. The last report which I received some weeks ago from consultant reaches the view that I have a short time left. I have a burning desire to clear my name. I think now that I will not witness that ultimate conclusion."

And in words that echoed Mr MacAskill's later reference to a "higher authority", he stated: "As I turn now to face my God, to stand before him, I have nothing to fear." (...)

Holyrood-Westminster relations

The big question for UK ministers arising from documents released yesterday is simply this: Did UK ministers tell the Libyans that Gordon Brown did not want Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail?

According to the minute of a meeting in Glasgow with Libyans on March 12 this year, Abdulati Alobidi [RB: the normal English transliteration of this name is al-Obeidi], minister for Europe, spoke of a visit to Tripoli the previous month by Foreign Minister Bill Rammell at which it was pointed out that if Megrahi died in custody it would have "catastrophic effects" on Libyan-UK relations.

Mr Alobidi was minuted as saying: "Mr Rammell had stated that neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary would want Mr Megrahi to pass away in prison but the decision on transfer lies in the hands of the Scottish Ministers."

That remains a clearer statement of the Prime Minister's opinion than Mr Brown has since been prepared to offer in public.

[RB: The accuracy of Mr al-Obeidi's statement was confirmed by David Miliband in a radio interview. According to a report on The Times website:

"The Foreign Secretary admitted that it was true that Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office minister, had told his Libyan counterpart back in February that the Prime Minister did not want Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi to pass away in Greenock prison."]

Why Megrahi dropped the appeal

[This is the heading over a section of an article by Lucy Adams that was published in The Herald on the occasion of the publication of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury. It reads as follows:]

CONTEXT: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi had two possible routes out of Greenock jail in August 2009: a prisoner transfer application for which he first had to drop his appeal, or compassionate release because of his prostate cancer. The latter route did not demand that he drop his appeal, in contrast to the former. In the event, he ended his appeal, yet the PTA was turned down, and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill instead granted compassionate release. The chain of actions has always been a mystery, leaving those who believe in Megrahi’s guilt to see his decision as confirmation of their views. Why would an innocent man not pursue an appeal against conviction that he had waited years to begin? Now, for the first time, Megrahi claims that he was pressured to drop the appeal by Mr MacAskill personally through diplomatic channels.

EXTRACT: "On 10 August [2009] MacAskill and his senior civil servants met a delegation of Libyan officials, including Minister [Abdel Ati] Al-Obeidi. By this time I was desperate. The 90-day time limit for considering the prisoner transfer application had passed and, although I had some vocal public supporters, MacAskill was coming under considerable pressure to reject both applications. After the meeting the Libyan delegation came to the prison to visit me. Obeidi said that, towards the end of the meeting, MacAskill had asked to speak to him in private. Once the others had withdrawn, MacAskill told him it would be easier for him to grant compassionate release if I dropped my appeal. He [MacAskill] said he was not demanding that I do so, but the message seemed to me to be clear. I was legally entitled to continue the appeal, but I could not risk doing so. It meant abandoning my quest for justice."

LUCY ADAMS VERDICT:  Mr MacAskill, who was not contacted in advance of today's book publication, has always said he could not interfere in the judicial process. If Megrahi's version of events is true, it will prove very damaging to the minister, who has repeatedly distanced himself from any appeal which, if it had gone ahead, could have been a massive embarrassment to the Scottish legal system. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had already found six grounds on which Megrahi’s conviction was potentially unsafe.

The scope of the prisoner transfer agreement

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in The Guardian on this date in 2007:]

Scotland's justice secretary today labelled as "ludicrous" Westminster's claim that a prisoner exchange agreement with Libya did not cover the Lockerbie bomber.

Kenny MacAskill poured scorn on Downing Street's insistence that a memorandum of understanding signed last week during a trip by Tony Blair to Libya did not apply to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, has protested to Tony Blair over the agreement, which he suggested could lead to the Lockerbie bomber being transferred from Scotland to his homeland.

The SNP leader made an emergency statement in the Holyrood parliament complaining that "at no stage" had he been made aware of a British-Libyan agreement on extradition and prisoner release before it was signed.

The agreement has sparked the first major row between the government and the minority SNP administration in Holyrood.

Mr MacAskill told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland that Westminster's handling of the affair was "at minimum, discourteous to the first minister and the Scottish parliament".

Mr MacAskill continued: "There's no mention of al-Megrahi [in the memorandum] but we have many people in our prisons ... but we have only one Libyan national in our prisons.

"So when we're talking about the transfer of Libyan prisoners they are not secreted in Barlinnie, Saughton, Perth or anywhere else.

"We have only one Libyan national in custody and when we talk about the transfer of prisoners, frankly it is ludicrous to suggest that we are talking in a context other than this major atrocity that was perpetrated on Scottish soil and which was dealt with by a Scottish court and with a sentence provided by Scottish judges." (...)

No 10 denied Megrahi's case was covered by the document, saying: "There is a legal process currently under way in Scotland reviewing this case which is not expected to conclude until later this summer.

"Given that, it is totally wrong to suggest the we have reached any agreement with the Libyan government in this case.

"The memorandum of understanding agreed with the Libyan government last week does not cover this case."

But Mr MacAskill rejected any suggestion that the agreement would only apply to the transfer of al-Qaida suspects.

He said: "We haven't been given clarification [by Downing Street].

"All we've been told is that a memorandum of understanding has been signed.

"Mr al-Megrahi is not specifically excluded. It refers to the transfer of prisoners so this is London's interpretation of it.

"I doubt it very much if it's the interpretation being placed upon it by the government of Libya."

[RB: Here is something previously written by me on this matter:]

It was on [29 May] 2007 that the “deal in the desert” was concluded between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi at a meeting in Sirte. This was embodied in a “memorandum of understanding” that provided, amongst other things, for a prisoner transfer agreement to be drawn up. In later years UK Government ministers, particularly Justice Secretary Jack Straw, sought to argue either (i) that the prisoner transfer element of the deal was not intended to apply to Abdelbaset Megrahi or (ii) that if it was intended to cover him, all parties appreciated that the decision on transfer would be one for the Scottish Government not the UK Government. Here is what I wrote about that on this blog:

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.”

Libya confirms support for proposed neutral venue trial

[On this date in 1998 Dr Jim Swire and I were in Libya. During our discussions in Cairo on 16 April 1998 at the headquarters of the Arab League, it was suggested that it would be useful for us to make a visit to Tripoli. This we did. What follows is from a press release issued following that visit:]

A meeting to discuss issues arising out of the Lockerbie bombing was held in the premises of the Libyan Foreign Office in Tripoli on the evening of Saturday 18 April 1998. Present were Mr Abdul Ati Obeidi, Under-Secretary of the Libyan Foreign Office; Mr Mohammed Belqassem Zuwiy [or Zwai], Secretary of Justice of Libya; Mr Abuzaid Omar Dorda, Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations; Dr Ibrahim Legwell, head of the defence team representing the two Libyan citizens suspected of the bombing; Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the British relatives group UK Families-Flight 103; and Professor Robert Black QC, Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and currently a visiting professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

At the meeting, discussion focused upon the plan which had been formulated in January 1994 by Professor Black for the establishment of a court to try the suspects which would: operate under the criminal law and procedure of Scotland; have in place of a jury an international panel of judges presided over by a senior Scottish judge; and, sit not in Scotland but in a neutral country such as The Netherlands.

Among the issues discussed were possible methods of appointment of the international panel of judges, and possible arrangements for the transfer of the suspects from Libya for trial and for ensuring their safety and security pending and during the trial.

Dr Legwell confirmed, as he had previously done in January 1994, that his clients agreed to stand trial before such a court if it were established. The representatives of the Libyan Government stated, as they had done in 1994 and on numerous occasions since then, that they would welcome the setting up of such a court and that if it were instituted they would permit their two citizens to stand trial before it and would co-operate in facilitating arrangements for that purpose.

Dr Swire and Prof Black undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the Government of the United Kingdom to join Libya in accepting this proposal.

If he wanted to go home, he had no real choice

[What follows is the text of a review by Lucy Adams of John Ashton’s Megrahi: You are my Jury that was published in The Herald on this date in 2012:]

For the relatives of the 270 people who died in December 1988 as a result of the bombing of Pan Am 103, this book will make for difficult reading.

For more than 23 years they have had to deal with their grief while wrangling with the stories of politicians, spooks, government agencies and conspiracy theorists. For others, it may well provide compulsive reading.

The only man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity to have taken place on mainland Britain did not take the stand at his trial and consequently very few have heard his side of the story. There are many who will not want to, many for whom it may be too painful or too difficult to change views strongly held for more than two decades.

Rather than tell the whole story in the first person, the book is split between the formal revelations of the author John Ashton – a former member of Megrahi's defence team – and the italicised first-person views of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, who spent eight years imprisoned in Scotland.

For someone like me, who has covered Lockerbie for more than a decade, and met Megrahi and his family, to hear the details of his life, to be able to fill some of the gaps and answer questions that even his greatest supporters found uncomfortable makes this book compelling. For others the fact he is still alive, two and a half years after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and released on compassionate grounds, and has been allowed to express his views, may prove sickening.

In Megrahi's preface he explains that the decision to abandon his appeal was a "terrible choice" to have had to make. He writes: "From the moment I made that decision, I was determined that, if I could not be judged in a court of law, then I should be judged in the court of public opinion." He says the relatives of the victims have his "utmost sympathy" and asks that they judge him with their heads as well as their hearts.

Much later in the book he reveals that he felt compelled to drop his appeal as he gained the impression from Scottish ministers that if he wanted to go home, he had no real choice. Legally, to be released on compassionate grounds, there was no requirement to drop the appeal. However, he describes the former Libyan ambassador and foreign minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi being taken aside by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

He writes: "Obeidi said that, towards the end of the meeting, MacAskill had asked to speak to him in private. Once the others had withdrawn, MacAskill told him it would be easier for him to grant compassionate release if I dropped my appeal. He said he was not demanding that I do so, but the message seemed to me to be clear. I was legally entitled to continue the appeal, but I could not risk doing so."

Such interference was vehemently denied by the Scottish Government then and is denied now.

In the opening chapters Megrahi reveals less than flattering details – how he lied to his wife, for example, because he was travelling abroad a great deal to import different embargoed goods – illegal under the US trade sanctions at the time. And why he was in Malta on a false passport – a fact used against him in the trial to impugn his innocence. He says that, for those involved in importing embargoed goods, it was commonplace at that time to use a coded passport. He points out too that, if he were a terrorist, he was a very bad one. He held on to this coded passport for 10 years and willingly handed it over to the trial at Camp Zeist, such was his belief that he was and would be found innocent. The coded passport has repeatedly been used by the Crown as evidence of his guilt and his role as a security agent – something the book denies.

As the surface is peeled back from each of the key tenets of the case – witnesses and forensics – Megrahi gives his own version of events. Through his words the reader is given an insight into what he was doing when he heard about the indictment against him and then, towards the end of the book, what happened when he dropped his appeal and was granted compassionate release.

One of the weaknesses of the book is that we never really get to see inside his mind or his feelings. When he learns he is going home he writes: "The enormity of the relief that I experienced is impossible to describe. For 18 years I had been the victim of politics. Now, finally, I was its beneficiary." There are moments of greater poignancy, as when he sees his parents for the first time. "It was so incredible to see them all again," he writes, "that I had to ask one of the children to slap my face to ensure I wasn't dreaming." But, on the whole, the book lacks any illumination of his inner thoughts and emotional state.

Ashton presents layer upon layer of a circumstantial case which points towards the guilt of Iran and the Palestinian terror group, the PFLP-GC. Every point is carefully referenced back to police statements, precognition statements, security documents and critical information unearthed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). It was, critically, the SCCRC which referred the case back for a fresh appeal in June 2007 on six different grounds. A summary of these was presented at the time but the details of the 800-page report have never been published despite efforts by campaigners and the Scottish Government.

Ashton had access to the full report and draws upon it throughout each chapter, referring to new statements and documents unearthed by the SCCRC, which point to major inconsistencies in the evidence of key witnesses such as Tony Gauci – the shopkeeper who claimed to have sold Megrahi the clothes found in the suitcase thought to have housed the bomb – plus holes in the forensics arguments.

Gradually Ashton pulls together a palimpsest of the Lockerbie story, scraping away at the original prosecution case, revealing how key witnesses were compromised by reward money and their roles as security or double agents, and how the Scots police were often undermined by the American security services.

The book states: "Being in the dark was, by then, a familiar experience for the Scottish police. It was not until September 1990 that they finally learned of the existence of Mebo [the Swiss company the prosecution claimed sold the timers to the Libyans], having once again been spoonfed information by the intelligence services - the day before the [Scots police] visit, CIA officers met with the Swiss police and intelligence services."

It is the author's encyclopedic unpackaging of all the key elements of the prosecution case, new evidence, previously undisclosed documents and the grounds of the SCCRC that make this the definitive Lockerbie account. Undoubtedly there is much that will be contested by the Crown, and there are many who will not want to read of the possibility that the only man convicted of this terrible atrocity may not in fact have been responsible. Certainly, the book indicates that, had the second appeal taken place, Megrahi would have been acquitted. Whether he is guilty or not is up to the reader to decide.

Megrahi – You Are My Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence  John Ashton, Birlinn, £14.99

Lockerbie and the Tripoli verdicts

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in today’s edition of The Herald:]

The Tripoli court also sentenced to death seven others, including former Libyan spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

The Crown Office had previously commented on Senussi's potential value to the new inquiry when he was extradited from Mauritania, on the west coast of Africa, to Libya in September 2012.

Mr Mulholland and the FBI have previously stated their continuing belief Libya was behind the massacre and al-Megrahi carried out the operation.

But Professor Robert Black QC, one of the architects of the Camp Zeist trial which convicted al-Megrahi, has said that while the execution of Senussi would not have major implications for the Lockerbie case, Omar-Dorda's death may.

He said: "If Lockerbie was a Libyan operation, which I've yet to be convinced it was, I doubt if Senussi was in the loop. He was mainly concerned with internal security, ie keeping Gaddafi in power, rather than foreign operations.

"But the events in Tripoli do impact on Lockerbie in other ways. One of those sentenced to death is Abuzed Omar-Dorda, who was instrumental in brokering the arrangement that led the UK and USA eventually to agree to a non-jury trial in the Netherlands. A genuinely good guy."

Professor Black said another two Libyans with Lockerbie connections had been acquitted: Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, former Foreign Minister who chaired the Libyan government committee that dealt with securing a Lockerbie trial and, later, with the ramifications of the guilty verdict against Megrahi, and Mohammed Zwai who was, for most of the relevant period during which the [fallout from the] Lockerbie trial was being considered, Libyan ambassador in London.

Dr Jim Swire, the public face of the British families of the Lockerbie victims and sceptic over the role of al-Megrahi and Libya, said he believed the executions were "irrelevant" to resolve any outstanding questions over the tragedy.

But he also described the Tripoli decisions as a "put down for the concept of international justice".

He added: "I had hoped vainly these guys would be handed over to international criminal courts, given a fair trial and no death sentence imposed. They have been tried in a court which wouldn't be recognised outside Libya.

"I'm particularly sad about Dorda, who I knew well and met many times."

Obeidi & Zwai acquitted, Dorda sentenced to death

[What follows is the text of a report published this afternoon on the Libya Herald website:]

As was widely expected, a court in Tripoli has sentenced Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi and Abdullah Senussi to death for war crimes during the 2011 revolution. Seven other senior member of the Qaddafi regime have also been given death sentences. They are:

• Former prime minister Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi;
• Abuzeid Dourda; former General Secretary of the General People’s Committee (effectively prime minister) then Qaddafi’s external intelligence chief;
• Mansur Dhou, head of Qaddafi’s Tripoli internal security agency;
• Milad Daman head of internal security;
• Abdulhamid Ohida, an assistant to Senussi;
• Awidat Ghandoor Noubi, responsible for Qaddafi’s Revolutionary Committees in Tripoli;
• Mundar Mukhtar Ghanaimi

Among the other former regime figures on trial, 23 were given jail terms from life imprisonment in the case of eight of the accused to five years for one of them. One person, Nuri Al-Jetlawi, was ordered to be detained at a psychiatric hospital while four were found innocent and freed: former foreign minister Abdulati Al–Obeidi, Ali Zway, Mohamed Al-Waher and Amer Abani.

In the case of Saif Al-Islam, who like Abdullah Senussi, was wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the guilty verdict and sentencing was effectively in absentia. He is being held in Zintan.

All those sentenced to death, as well as the others, have a right to appeal within 60 days. Even if there is no appeal, the sentences still have to be endorsed by the High Court. If the sentences are carried out in the case of Saif Al-Islam, Senussi and the other seven sentenced to death, execution ill be by firing squad.

The court proceedings, held at Hadba Al-Khadra prison, have attracted considerable criticism from Libyan and international human rights lawayers and activists. In the case of Saif Al-Islam, his British lawyer, John Jones, condemned it as “a show trial”. “The whole thing is illegitimate from start to finish… It’s judicially sanctioned execution”, he said.

The internationally recognised government in Beida has rejected the trial as unsafe.

[RB: I am delighted at the acquittal of Messrs Obeidi and Zwai, both of whom played an important and honourable part in resolving the Lockerbie impasse between Libya and the United Kingdom and United States. The conviction of and death sentence on Abuzed Dorda horrify me. As Libya’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations he also had a major rôle in the resolution of the issue. I met all of them on many occasions and found them entirely trustworthy and likeable.]

Verdicts due in Tripoli trial of Gaddafi-era officials

Verdicts are expected today in the trial before a court in Tripoli of 37 Gaddafi-era officials. As well as Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, they include figures who played a significant part in the resolution of the Lockerbie impasse between Libya and the United Kingdom and United States, including Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, Mohammed Belqasim Zwai and Abuzed Omar Dorda. See Libya court to rule on Gaddafi's son Saif, former officials on July 28 and Court to rule on Gaddafi’s son in war-torn Libya.

BBC News reports that Saif and eight others have been sentenced to death: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33688391. None of the reports so far available (11.40 am) mentions Obeidi, Zwai and Dorda.

Downing Street disinformation

[What follows is excerpted from a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2007:]

The UK Government has published details of a deal struck with Libya on prisoner exchange, which it insists does not cover the Lockerbie bomber's case.

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond had voiced concern at Holyrood that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi could be transferred back to a jail in Libya.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said no deal had been signed over the future of al-Megrahi. (...)

The memorandum of understanding with Libya was signed last week by Mr Blair during a trip to the country. It was created on 29 May.

It states that the two sides will shortly "commence negotiations" on prisoner transfer, extradition and mutual assistance in criminal law, with a final deal signed within 12 months.

It will be based on a "model agreement" that, according to the document, has already been hammered out.

Mr Salmond had demanded clarification from the UK Government about al-Megrahi's case and made an emergency statement at Holyrood on Thursday.

He said that "at no stage" was the Scottish government made aware of the memorandum, despite the deal being struck on 29 May.

Addressing MSPs, he said: "I have today written to the prime minister expressing my concern that it was felt appropriate for the UK government to sign such a memorandum on matters clearly devolved to Scotland, without any opportunity for this government and indeed this parliament to contribute." (...)

He added that while the Scottish Executive supported the UK Government's desire for better relations with Libya, the lack of consultation with Holyrood over the memorandum was "clearly unacceptable".

"This government is determined that decisions on any individual case will continue to be made following the due process of Scots law," the first minister said.

A Downing Street statement said: "There is a legal process currently under way in Scotland reviewing this case which is not expected to conclude until later this summer.

"Given that, it is totally wrong to suggest the we have reached any agreement with the Libyan Government in this case.

"The memorandum of understanding agreed with the Libyan Government last week does not cover this case." (...)

Opposition politicians in Scotland condemned the lack of consultation with the Scottish government.

Labour leader Jack McConnell said: "As former first minister I would have expected and demanded no less than prior consultation on such a memorandum.

"Scottish ministers, as far as I understand the letter of the law, have an absolute veto over prison transfers. I want to know if this memorandum contradicts that in any way."

[RB: Here is something previously written by me on this matter:]

It was on this date in 2007 that the “deal in the desert” was concluded between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi at a meeting in Sirte. This was embodied in a “memorandum of understanding” that provided, amongst other things, for a prisoner transfer agreement to be drawn up. In later years UK Government ministers, particularly Justice Secretary Jack Straw, sought to argue either (i) that the prisoner transfer element of the deal was not intended to apply to Abdelbaset Megrahi or (ii) that if it was intended to cover him, all parties appreciated that the decision on transfer would be one for the Scottish Government not the UK Government. Here is what I wrote about that on this blog:

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.”