Tony Hayward, the outgoing chief executive of BP, has refused to testify for the second time before a US Senate hearing about BP’s role in the release of the Lockerbie Bomber.
Mr Hayward, who also refused to testify in July shortly after resigning from BP, wrote to US Sen Robert Menendez that he is focused on ensuring a “smooth and successful leadership change” at the company and will be unable to testify. (...)
BP has admitted that Sir Mark Allen, an adviser to the firm, spoke to Jack Straw, the former Justice Secretary, about Britain introducing a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Mr Menendez initially planned the hearing for last month, but was forced to postpone it when he could not get Mr Hayward or officials from Britain and Scotland to testify. (...)
Citing public comments from British and Scottish officials saying they found no evidence that BP played a role in al-Megrahi’s release, Mr Hayward in his latest letter said, “BP has nothing to add to these clear, unequivocal statements.”
Mr Menendez has said that although the committee cannot compel foreign nationals to testify at a hearing in the U.S., the committee will look into whether Mr Hayward could be subpoenaed because BP conducts business in the US.
[From a report in today's edition of the Daily Telegraph.
The Washington Post's Spy Talk blog has a post headed "CIA retirees call for escalated probe of Pan Am 103 bomber's release". The Association of Former Intelligence Officers, an organization of CIA and other ex-intelligence officers, is calling for Scotland, Britain and all relevant branches of the US government to cooperate with a US Senate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi. A number of US intelligence officers were amongst the victims of Pan Am 103. Now, if AFIO were to call for an inquiry into the circumstances of Mr Megrahi's conviction and to call for the US and other governments to make available all documents and evidence pertinent to that issue, that really would be a news story.]
Showing posts sorted by date for query mark allen. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query mark allen. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Friday 27 August 2010
Sunday 1 August 2010
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.
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.
Monday 26 July 2010
US may release Lockerbie files
[This is the headline over a report in The Herald by UK Political Editor Michael Settle. It reads in part:]
The US Government is deciding whether to release all of its Lockerbie files, after Alex Salmond called for full disclosure – including details of the contacts between the UK Government and BP.
With a Senate hearing just four days away, the focus is beginning to fall on the exchanges between Washington, Edinburgh and London in the run-up to the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Louis Susman, the American ambassador to Britain, stressed the US Government is examining whether its correspondence over Megrahi could be released. “We will come up with a decision later on in relation to the hearing,” he said.
Salmond, meanwhile, noted the previous UK Government’s exchanges with BP were “more extensive than anyone had hitherto thought”. The First Minister was referring to a seven-page letter sent at the weekend to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary, confirming BP had met the former Labour Government five times in October and November 2007 over fears that disputes about a prisoner transfer agreement could damage its oil exploration contracts with Libya.
However, Hague emphasised this was a “perfectly normal and legitimate practice for a British company”, and said there was no evidence to corroborate the allegation BP was involved in Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
In the autumn of 2007, Jack Straw, the former UK Justice Secretary, had at least two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 agent and a BP consultant. It has been suggested the oil giant, which a few months earlier had signed the “deal in the desert” with Tripoli, worth almost £600 million, was concerned that any delay in the prisoner transfer agreement between Libya and the UK could damage its commercial interests. (...)
Salmond said: “Just as I would say it would be helpful for the US to publish all the correspondence, the present Prime Minister is right in saying he is going to publish all that correspondence as well. When all that is published, the position of the Scottish Government will be vindicated.
“We’ve acted throughout with total integrity.” (...)
Elsewhere, a leaked memo has shown that while the US Government did not want Megrahi released, it made clear that compassionate grounds were “far preferable” to his transfer to a Libyan jail.
This seems to fly in the face of the statement last week by Barack Obama that America had been “surprised, disappointed and angry” about the release.
Susman said: “We had a mutual understanding with the British Government that if he was tried and convicted he would serve his entire sentence in Scotland.
“The fact [MacAskill] made a decision on compassionate grounds to release him was something we were not in favour of.”
The US Government is deciding whether to release all of its Lockerbie files, after Alex Salmond called for full disclosure – including details of the contacts between the UK Government and BP.
With a Senate hearing just four days away, the focus is beginning to fall on the exchanges between Washington, Edinburgh and London in the run-up to the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Louis Susman, the American ambassador to Britain, stressed the US Government is examining whether its correspondence over Megrahi could be released. “We will come up with a decision later on in relation to the hearing,” he said.
Salmond, meanwhile, noted the previous UK Government’s exchanges with BP were “more extensive than anyone had hitherto thought”. The First Minister was referring to a seven-page letter sent at the weekend to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary, confirming BP had met the former Labour Government five times in October and November 2007 over fears that disputes about a prisoner transfer agreement could damage its oil exploration contracts with Libya.
However, Hague emphasised this was a “perfectly normal and legitimate practice for a British company”, and said there was no evidence to corroborate the allegation BP was involved in Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
In the autumn of 2007, Jack Straw, the former UK Justice Secretary, had at least two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 agent and a BP consultant. It has been suggested the oil giant, which a few months earlier had signed the “deal in the desert” with Tripoli, worth almost £600 million, was concerned that any delay in the prisoner transfer agreement between Libya and the UK could damage its commercial interests. (...)
Salmond said: “Just as I would say it would be helpful for the US to publish all the correspondence, the present Prime Minister is right in saying he is going to publish all that correspondence as well. When all that is published, the position of the Scottish Government will be vindicated.
“We’ve acted throughout with total integrity.” (...)
Elsewhere, a leaked memo has shown that while the US Government did not want Megrahi released, it made clear that compassionate grounds were “far preferable” to his transfer to a Libyan jail.
This seems to fly in the face of the statement last week by Barack Obama that America had been “surprised, disappointed and angry” about the release.
Susman said: “We had a mutual understanding with the British Government that if he was tried and convicted he would serve his entire sentence in Scotland.
“The fact [MacAskill] made a decision on compassionate grounds to release him was something we were not in favour of.”
Saturday 24 July 2010
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.
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.
US should examine its own conscience
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
The decision by the Scottish Government that the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) director of health, Dr Andrew Fraser, should not give evidence at a United States Senate hearing into the release of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has brought claims they have something to hide.
But the charge should be directed at the US and the Senators should invite evidence from their own State Department. The letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepting the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) confirms the US condemnation of the Scottish Government as hypocrisy of the first order.
The Justice Secretary and the SPS health director are right to rebuff the US Senators’ invitation to attend the hearing into the release of Megrahi. Their actions have already been explained in a letter from Alex Salmond to Senators, along with an offer to answer further questions. It is therefore difficult to see what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has to gain from the Justice Secretary appearing before them other than to bait him in a febrile political arena.
Wilful confusion has been stoked by US politicians who have deliberately ignored the inconvenient truth that a major obstacle to the PTA was that the only Libyan of any consequence in a British jail, Megrahi, was subject to the separate legal jurisdiction in Scotland.
His release last year was on the separate grounds of compassion due to a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. Only its timing, which closely followed ratification of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK Government and Libya and the announcement of drilling rights for BP in Libya, has allowed conflation by those seeking to exploit outrage over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Nevertheless the Scottish Government’s avowal of transparency is brought into focus by the refusal of the Justice Secretary to explain why he took the unprecedented step for a government minister of holding a private meeting with a prisoner before release. As long as that question remains unanswered, suspicion will continue that Megrahi’s withdrawal of his appeal was part of a deal. If MacAskill has nothing to hide, he should be open about the reason for that meeting, unless there is good cause to keep the matter under wraps. By the same token the US Senators should be honest and decouple Scotland’s compassionate release of Megrahi from BP’s interests in Libya.
The attack on PanAm flight 103 has been mired in the complexities of international politics from the beginning and, unfairly or not, Scottish justice has been found wanting in the international court of public opinion. The most glaring affront to justice, however, will always be that 270 people died on December 21, 1988 as the innocent victims of a terrorist crime. Their memories should be honoured by a quest for the truth, not the sordid continuation of political posturing based on misinformation on the other side of the Atlantic.
[I presume that The Herald also has an article describing in more detail the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government. Once that article appears online I shall add a reference to this post.
There is no further article on the document: I went so far as to buy a copy of the newspaper to make sure! What there is is a full page of readers' letters, nine out of the total of ten of which support the Scottish Government's stance. They can be read here.
An article by the paper's UK political editor Michael Settle contains the following:]
The US inquiry into release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in danger of becoming an embarrassing no-show last night after Jack Straw announced he too had declined the offer to attend.
The former justice secretary said he could not help the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing because he had “absolutely nothing to do” with the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which he stressed was an “entirely separate decision for the Scottish Justice Secretary”.
However, the SNP’s Christine Grahame insisted Straw had no principled reason not to go, given his activities directly related to the committee’s central point of concern about oil.
She insisted his decision was deeply embarrassing for Scottish Labour, which had attacked Kenny MacAskill for declining the Senate’s invitation. (...)
Invitations to five foreign witnesses have gone out from the Senate committee and three have so far been rejected from Straw, MacAskill and Dr Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service, who drew up the final medical report on the Libyan.
It is not yet known if Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, will attend or Sir Mark Allen, a former lobbyist for the oil giant who helped broker the £590 million “deal in the desert” with Libya, but in light of the rejections, this is thought unlikely.
Confusion still surrounds the invitation written out for Tony Blair, the former prime minister, to attend but which was then swiftly withdrawn. The committee simply said it had been “an error”. (...)
Yesterday, there was a deal of support for Straw and MacAskill’s decision to decline to attend the Senate hearing. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, who was Scottish secretary at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, said British ministers “should co-operate but not to the extent to give evidence in person”.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “As a matter of principle, a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee.”
Mike Gapes, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the senators of political grandstanding while his colleague Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, claimed they were engaged in a witch-hunt against BP. (...)
Meantime, the Justice for Megrahi committee, which believes the Libyan to be innocent, called for the Scottish Government to launch its own inquiry, which would cover all aspects of the Lockerbie case. [Note by RB: The call for an inquiry is fully reported in an article on The Guardian website.]
The Senate committee’s hearing takes place at 7.30pm UK time on Thursday and is expected to last three hours.
[The Scotsman has an editorial on the subject. It is supportive of Kenny MacAskill -- perhaps a first for this virulently anti-SNP newspaper. It reads in part:]
In matters of international relations, protocol counts for much, diplomacy a great deal but integrity most of all.
The US senators who have sent out requests for Scotland's justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them in their inquiry into the Megrahi affair might usefully have borne this in mind.
Why expect Mr MacAskill to respond positively when the former UK prime minister Tony Blair has not been so summoned? It was Mr Blair who was in the tent with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi when a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was discussed. It was Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who was behind the plot to blow up the Pan Am jet with the callous slaughter of life over Lockerbie. It was both Col Gaddafi and Mr Blair that BP addressed in their lobbying over oil interests in Libya. As the First Minister Alex Salmond has made clear in his reply to the senators, "if your committee is concerned about BP's role or the PTA ,then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries". Quite.
The Scottish Government, publicly and by letter to the senators, has made clear the independent status of Scots law, the grounds under Scots law and the circumstances of Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds. It has also emphatically stated that at no time was it lobbied by BP on this matter.
Perhaps the senators felt that it would be unseemly to be seen to interrogate a former British prime minister who has been honoured by Congress. (...) Whatever the reason for the senators' actions, it is surely Mr Blair and Mr Straw, not Mr MacAskill, who are more central to the course of their inquiries. Requesting Mr MacAskill but not Mr Blair is at best asymmetric. But it smacks of an easy gesture to the gallery and also leaves the impression, unintended we are sure, that the Scottish justice secretary would be the easier to fry in the public pan.
While there is a wholly respectable case for Mr MacAskill to have accepted the senators' invitation and taken the opportunity to explain Scotland's legal system and put their concerns over its independence at rest, the senators have made it difficult for him to do so while not appearing to be a substitute for inquiries best addressed elsewhere.
In other circumstances Scottish ministers would have been happy to make their position plain to an American audience understandably outraged by an act of wanton terrorism and understandably appalled if Megrahi's release was the result of what has become widely known as "the deal in the desert".
The decision by the Scottish Government that the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) director of health, Dr Andrew Fraser, should not give evidence at a United States Senate hearing into the release of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has brought claims they have something to hide.
But the charge should be directed at the US and the Senators should invite evidence from their own State Department. The letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government effectively accepting the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds as preferable to repatriation under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) confirms the US condemnation of the Scottish Government as hypocrisy of the first order.
The Justice Secretary and the SPS health director are right to rebuff the US Senators’ invitation to attend the hearing into the release of Megrahi. Their actions have already been explained in a letter from Alex Salmond to Senators, along with an offer to answer further questions. It is therefore difficult to see what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has to gain from the Justice Secretary appearing before them other than to bait him in a febrile political arena.
Wilful confusion has been stoked by US politicians who have deliberately ignored the inconvenient truth that a major obstacle to the PTA was that the only Libyan of any consequence in a British jail, Megrahi, was subject to the separate legal jurisdiction in Scotland.
His release last year was on the separate grounds of compassion due to a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. Only its timing, which closely followed ratification of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK Government and Libya and the announcement of drilling rights for BP in Libya, has allowed conflation by those seeking to exploit outrage over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Nevertheless the Scottish Government’s avowal of transparency is brought into focus by the refusal of the Justice Secretary to explain why he took the unprecedented step for a government minister of holding a private meeting with a prisoner before release. As long as that question remains unanswered, suspicion will continue that Megrahi’s withdrawal of his appeal was part of a deal. If MacAskill has nothing to hide, he should be open about the reason for that meeting, unless there is good cause to keep the matter under wraps. By the same token the US Senators should be honest and decouple Scotland’s compassionate release of Megrahi from BP’s interests in Libya.
The attack on PanAm flight 103 has been mired in the complexities of international politics from the beginning and, unfairly or not, Scottish justice has been found wanting in the international court of public opinion. The most glaring affront to justice, however, will always be that 270 people died on December 21, 1988 as the innocent victims of a terrorist crime. Their memories should be honoured by a quest for the truth, not the sordid continuation of political posturing based on misinformation on the other side of the Atlantic.
[I presume that The Herald also has an article describing in more detail the letter from the US State Department to the Scottish Government. Once that article appears online I shall add a reference to this post.
There is no further article on the document: I went so far as to buy a copy of the newspaper to make sure! What there is is a full page of readers' letters, nine out of the total of ten of which support the Scottish Government's stance. They can be read here.
An article by the paper's UK political editor Michael Settle contains the following:]
The US inquiry into release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in danger of becoming an embarrassing no-show last night after Jack Straw announced he too had declined the offer to attend.
The former justice secretary said he could not help the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing because he had “absolutely nothing to do” with the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, which he stressed was an “entirely separate decision for the Scottish Justice Secretary”.
However, the SNP’s Christine Grahame insisted Straw had no principled reason not to go, given his activities directly related to the committee’s central point of concern about oil.
She insisted his decision was deeply embarrassing for Scottish Labour, which had attacked Kenny MacAskill for declining the Senate’s invitation. (...)
Invitations to five foreign witnesses have gone out from the Senate committee and three have so far been rejected from Straw, MacAskill and Dr Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service, who drew up the final medical report on the Libyan.
It is not yet known if Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, will attend or Sir Mark Allen, a former lobbyist for the oil giant who helped broker the £590 million “deal in the desert” with Libya, but in light of the rejections, this is thought unlikely.
Confusion still surrounds the invitation written out for Tony Blair, the former prime minister, to attend but which was then swiftly withdrawn. The committee simply said it had been “an error”. (...)
Yesterday, there was a deal of support for Straw and MacAskill’s decision to decline to attend the Senate hearing. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, who was Scottish secretary at the time of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, said British ministers “should co-operate but not to the extent to give evidence in person”.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “As a matter of principle, a British government or a Scottish government should not submit to the jurisdiction of an American congressional committee.”
Mike Gapes, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the senators of political grandstanding while his colleague Kevan Jones, a former Labour defence minister, claimed they were engaged in a witch-hunt against BP. (...)
Meantime, the Justice for Megrahi committee, which believes the Libyan to be innocent, called for the Scottish Government to launch its own inquiry, which would cover all aspects of the Lockerbie case. [Note by RB: The call for an inquiry is fully reported in an article on The Guardian website.]
The Senate committee’s hearing takes place at 7.30pm UK time on Thursday and is expected to last three hours.
[The Scotsman has an editorial on the subject. It is supportive of Kenny MacAskill -- perhaps a first for this virulently anti-SNP newspaper. It reads in part:]
In matters of international relations, protocol counts for much, diplomacy a great deal but integrity most of all.
The US senators who have sent out requests for Scotland's justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them in their inquiry into the Megrahi affair might usefully have borne this in mind.
Why expect Mr MacAskill to respond positively when the former UK prime minister Tony Blair has not been so summoned? It was Mr Blair who was in the tent with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi when a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) was discussed. It was Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who was behind the plot to blow up the Pan Am jet with the callous slaughter of life over Lockerbie. It was both Col Gaddafi and Mr Blair that BP addressed in their lobbying over oil interests in Libya. As the First Minister Alex Salmond has made clear in his reply to the senators, "if your committee is concerned about BP's role or the PTA ,then it is BP and the previous UK administration that should be the focus of your inquiries". Quite.
The Scottish Government, publicly and by letter to the senators, has made clear the independent status of Scots law, the grounds under Scots law and the circumstances of Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds. It has also emphatically stated that at no time was it lobbied by BP on this matter.
Perhaps the senators felt that it would be unseemly to be seen to interrogate a former British prime minister who has been honoured by Congress. (...) Whatever the reason for the senators' actions, it is surely Mr Blair and Mr Straw, not Mr MacAskill, who are more central to the course of their inquiries. Requesting Mr MacAskill but not Mr Blair is at best asymmetric. But it smacks of an easy gesture to the gallery and also leaves the impression, unintended we are sure, that the Scottish justice secretary would be the easier to fry in the public pan.
While there is a wholly respectable case for Mr MacAskill to have accepted the senators' invitation and taken the opportunity to explain Scotland's legal system and put their concerns over its independence at rest, the senators have made it difficult for him to do so while not appearing to be a substitute for inquiries best addressed elsewhere.
In other circumstances Scottish ministers would have been happy to make their position plain to an American audience understandably outraged by an act of wanton terrorism and understandably appalled if Megrahi's release was the result of what has become widely known as "the deal in the desert".
Friday 23 July 2010
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 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.]
Wednesday 21 July 2010
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.”
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.”
Tuesday 6 July 2010
A (Better) Reason to Hate BP
[This is the headline over an article by Bret Stephens in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal. It reads in part:]
What Barack Obama taketh away, Moammar Gadhafi giveth. That must be the fond hope these days at BP, as it seeks to recoup in Libya's Gulf of Sidra what it is losing in the Gulf of Mexico. (...)
Yesterday, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Co told Zawya Dow Jones that he would urge Libya's sovereign wealth fund to buy a strategic stake in the troubled oil giant. That follows news that Libya will allow BP to begin deepwater drilling next month off Libya's coast as part of a $900 million exploration deal initially agreed upon in 2007. (...)
This rare patch of sunshine for BP arrives almost simultaneously with reports of another sort. Over the weekend, London's Sunday Times reported that a doctor who last year diagnosed Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi with metastatic prostate cancer and gave him three months to live now thinks the former Libyan intelligence agent "could survive for 10 years or more." (...)
Megrahi's not-so-surprising longevity is the latest sordid twist in a tale in which BP is no bystander. It begins in 2004, with efforts by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair to rehabilitate Col Gadhafi and open Libya to British commercial interests. BP inked its exploration deal with Libya following a second visit by Mr Blair in 2007. But the deal nearly ran aground after the UK took its time finalizing a prisoner transfer agreement between the two countries.
It was at this point that BP became concerned. As this newspaper reported last September, BP admits that in 2007 it "told the UK government . . . it was concerned that a delay in concluding a prisoner transfer agrement with the Libyan government might hurt" the deal it had just signed. BP also told the Journal that a special adviser to the company named Mark Allen, formerly of MI6 and well-connected in Labour Party circles, raised the transfer agreement issue with then-Justice Secretary Jack Straw, though the company also says the two did not discuss Megrahi.
On what basis (other than sheer mercantilism) would a BP adviser raise a prisoner transfer agreement with senior UK officials? I put that question to a BP spokesperson and was told I'd hear back "shortly." As of press time, I still hadn't.
As for the UK and Scottish governments, their denials that Megrahi's release had anything to do with BP and other oil interests could not be more emphatic. "The idea that the British government and the Libyan government would sit down and somehow barter over the freedom or the life of this Libyan prisoner and make it form some part of some business deal . . . it's not only wrong, it's completely implausible and actually quite offensive," said then-UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson at the time of Megrahi's release.
Yet as the Sunday Times reported last year, in 2007 Mr Straw wrote his Scottish counterpart Kenny MacAskill, the man who ultimately decided on Megrahi's release, that the UK would not exclude the Libyan from the prisoner agreement. "The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage," Mr Straw wrote, "and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed in this instance the [prisoner agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual."
Weeks later, Libya formally ratified its deal with BP, though it was again subject to bureaucratic delays until Megrahi's release. BP denied last year that the delays were anything other than routine. But the Libyans have been less than coy about the linkage: "People should not get angry because we were talking about commerce or oil," Gadhafi's son Seif said after Megrahi's release.
BP has now spent the past 11 weeks promising to make things right for everyone affected by the Gulf spill. But for the families of Pan Am Flight 103's 270 victims, things can never be made right. Nor, following Megrahi's release, will justice ever be served. The question that BP could usefully answer—and answer fully—is whether, in that denial of justice, their interests were served. It won't restore the company to honor, but it might do something to restore a measure of trust.
What Barack Obama taketh away, Moammar Gadhafi giveth. That must be the fond hope these days at BP, as it seeks to recoup in Libya's Gulf of Sidra what it is losing in the Gulf of Mexico. (...)
Yesterday, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Co told Zawya Dow Jones that he would urge Libya's sovereign wealth fund to buy a strategic stake in the troubled oil giant. That follows news that Libya will allow BP to begin deepwater drilling next month off Libya's coast as part of a $900 million exploration deal initially agreed upon in 2007. (...)
This rare patch of sunshine for BP arrives almost simultaneously with reports of another sort. Over the weekend, London's Sunday Times reported that a doctor who last year diagnosed Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi with metastatic prostate cancer and gave him three months to live now thinks the former Libyan intelligence agent "could survive for 10 years or more." (...)
Megrahi's not-so-surprising longevity is the latest sordid twist in a tale in which BP is no bystander. It begins in 2004, with efforts by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair to rehabilitate Col Gadhafi and open Libya to British commercial interests. BP inked its exploration deal with Libya following a second visit by Mr Blair in 2007. But the deal nearly ran aground after the UK took its time finalizing a prisoner transfer agreement between the two countries.
It was at this point that BP became concerned. As this newspaper reported last September, BP admits that in 2007 it "told the UK government . . . it was concerned that a delay in concluding a prisoner transfer agrement with the Libyan government might hurt" the deal it had just signed. BP also told the Journal that a special adviser to the company named Mark Allen, formerly of MI6 and well-connected in Labour Party circles, raised the transfer agreement issue with then-Justice Secretary Jack Straw, though the company also says the two did not discuss Megrahi.
On what basis (other than sheer mercantilism) would a BP adviser raise a prisoner transfer agreement with senior UK officials? I put that question to a BP spokesperson and was told I'd hear back "shortly." As of press time, I still hadn't.
As for the UK and Scottish governments, their denials that Megrahi's release had anything to do with BP and other oil interests could not be more emphatic. "The idea that the British government and the Libyan government would sit down and somehow barter over the freedom or the life of this Libyan prisoner and make it form some part of some business deal . . . it's not only wrong, it's completely implausible and actually quite offensive," said then-UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson at the time of Megrahi's release.
Yet as the Sunday Times reported last year, in 2007 Mr Straw wrote his Scottish counterpart Kenny MacAskill, the man who ultimately decided on Megrahi's release, that the UK would not exclude the Libyan from the prisoner agreement. "The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage," Mr Straw wrote, "and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed in this instance the [prisoner agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual."
Weeks later, Libya formally ratified its deal with BP, though it was again subject to bureaucratic delays until Megrahi's release. BP denied last year that the delays were anything other than routine. But the Libyans have been less than coy about the linkage: "People should not get angry because we were talking about commerce or oil," Gadhafi's son Seif said after Megrahi's release.
BP has now spent the past 11 weeks promising to make things right for everyone affected by the Gulf spill. But for the families of Pan Am Flight 103's 270 victims, things can never be made right. Nor, following Megrahi's release, will justice ever be served. The question that BP could usefully answer—and answer fully—is whether, in that denial of justice, their interests were served. It won't restore the company to honor, but it might do something to restore a measure of trust.
Sunday 31 January 2010
Straw fights release of transcript of calls over Libyan oil deal
Justice Secretary denies agreeing to release of Lockerbie bomber in talks with BP lobbyist
Jack Straw was accused last night of trying to cover up details of talks he held with a BP lobbyist over an oil deal with Libya weeks before reversing a Government move to block the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
The Secretary of State for Justice has turned down a Freedom of Information request from a Commons select committee to reveal whether, during two phone calls with the lobbyist, he agreed to include Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in Britain's Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) with Libya.
Mr Straw has admitted having two conversations with Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 agent turned BP consultant, in the autumn of 2007. But he has insisted that "at no stage was any undertaking promised, hinted, given to the Libyans, that in return for an overall bilateral arrangement Mr Megrahi would be released". (...)
Megrahi, convicted for the 1988 bombing which killed 270, was released last August on compassionate grounds – rather than under the PTA – by the Scottish Executive.
But Mr Straw's discussions with BP are still contentious because MPs believe ministers gave a smooth path for the release in the interests of trade with the Libyan government.
In early 2007, BP signed a $900m (£562m) oil exploration deal with Libya but the energy giant was concerned that the ongoing stalemate over the PTA would damage the contract. Sir Mark, who was involved in the 2003 deal for Colonel Gaddafi to give up his weapons of mass destruction programme, left MI6 in 2004 to work for BP. He telephoned Mr Straw, whom he knew from the minister's time as Foreign Secretary, on 15 October and 9 November 2007. On 19 December 2007, Mr Straw wrote to Mr MacAskill informing him of the British government's change of position.
The Conservative MP and member of the Scottish affairs committee Ben Wallace has written to Mr Straw demanding to see notes of the calls.
During Mr Straw's appearance before the committee last Wednesday, Mr Wallace told him: "I think we should know to what extent HM Government gave commitments in exchange for trade and whether that included Megrahi."
Mr Straw replied: "There's been no secret about the fact that I took two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen – I take telephone calls from all sorts of people. Sir Mark Allen is somebody I knew from my time in the Foreign Office. He actually had very extensive knowledge of the Middle East and in a role in the Foreign Office had been very much involved in these negotiations. I thought he was worth listening to. And that's what I did."
Asked by Mr Wallace whether he would release the notes, Mr Straw said tersely: "Decisions about the release of material under FOI are dealt with separately, with respect, all right?"
Mr Straw's spokesman said the request was turned down under section 35 of the FOI Act, which exempts ministerial communications. Mr Wallace is appealing on public interest grounds.
[The above are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Independent on Sunday. Readers may also care to have a look at this blog post.]
Jack Straw was accused last night of trying to cover up details of talks he held with a BP lobbyist over an oil deal with Libya weeks before reversing a Government move to block the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
The Secretary of State for Justice has turned down a Freedom of Information request from a Commons select committee to reveal whether, during two phone calls with the lobbyist, he agreed to include Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in Britain's Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) with Libya.
Mr Straw has admitted having two conversations with Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 agent turned BP consultant, in the autumn of 2007. But he has insisted that "at no stage was any undertaking promised, hinted, given to the Libyans, that in return for an overall bilateral arrangement Mr Megrahi would be released". (...)
Megrahi, convicted for the 1988 bombing which killed 270, was released last August on compassionate grounds – rather than under the PTA – by the Scottish Executive.
But Mr Straw's discussions with BP are still contentious because MPs believe ministers gave a smooth path for the release in the interests of trade with the Libyan government.
In early 2007, BP signed a $900m (£562m) oil exploration deal with Libya but the energy giant was concerned that the ongoing stalemate over the PTA would damage the contract. Sir Mark, who was involved in the 2003 deal for Colonel Gaddafi to give up his weapons of mass destruction programme, left MI6 in 2004 to work for BP. He telephoned Mr Straw, whom he knew from the minister's time as Foreign Secretary, on 15 October and 9 November 2007. On 19 December 2007, Mr Straw wrote to Mr MacAskill informing him of the British government's change of position.
The Conservative MP and member of the Scottish affairs committee Ben Wallace has written to Mr Straw demanding to see notes of the calls.
During Mr Straw's appearance before the committee last Wednesday, Mr Wallace told him: "I think we should know to what extent HM Government gave commitments in exchange for trade and whether that included Megrahi."
Mr Straw replied: "There's been no secret about the fact that I took two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen – I take telephone calls from all sorts of people. Sir Mark Allen is somebody I knew from my time in the Foreign Office. He actually had very extensive knowledge of the Middle East and in a role in the Foreign Office had been very much involved in these negotiations. I thought he was worth listening to. And that's what I did."
Asked by Mr Wallace whether he would release the notes, Mr Straw said tersely: "Decisions about the release of material under FOI are dealt with separately, with respect, all right?"
Mr Straw's spokesman said the request was turned down under section 35 of the FOI Act, which exempts ministerial communications. Mr Wallace is appealing on public interest grounds.
[The above are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Independent on Sunday. Readers may also care to have a look at this blog post.]
Thursday 28 January 2010
Straw says Holyrood not gratuitously kept in the dark over Megrahi deal
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Jack Straw said Holyrood was “not gratuitously kept in the dark” about the UK Government’s dealings with Libya over the Prisoner Transfer Agreement in relation to the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Giving evidence to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, the UK Justice Secretary was asked by the SNP’s Pete Wishart if it would not have been helpful for London to have kept Edinburgh informed about the agreement being drawn up with Tripoli.
Mr Straw said: “Where you are involved in complicated negotiations with a country like Libya, they have to be handled with great confidentiality.”
However, he went on: “We had no interest whatever in keeping the Scottish Executive gratuitously in the dark about this.” Mr Straw pointed out that no PTA gave the Libyan government or Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi a right to transfer, only a right to make an application.
“The Libyans absolutely understood that the discretion in respect... of any PTA application rested with the Scottish Executive.”
Ben Wallace, the deputy shadow Scottish Secretary, pressed Mr Straw on why he was “blocking” the release of the note about two phone calls he took from Sir Mark Allen, a BP consultant.
“It’s odd a man from BP rings you up, the position changes, an oil deal is signed and nowhere in the process is the victim included.”
Mr Straw replied that no promise or hint was given to Libya that in return for an bilateral arrangement, Mr Megrahi would be released.
[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."]
Jack Straw said Holyrood was “not gratuitously kept in the dark” about the UK Government’s dealings with Libya over the Prisoner Transfer Agreement in relation to the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Giving evidence to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, the UK Justice Secretary was asked by the SNP’s Pete Wishart if it would not have been helpful for London to have kept Edinburgh informed about the agreement being drawn up with Tripoli.
Mr Straw said: “Where you are involved in complicated negotiations with a country like Libya, they have to be handled with great confidentiality.”
However, he went on: “We had no interest whatever in keeping the Scottish Executive gratuitously in the dark about this.” Mr Straw pointed out that no PTA gave the Libyan government or Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi a right to transfer, only a right to make an application.
“The Libyans absolutely understood that the discretion in respect... of any PTA application rested with the Scottish Executive.”
Ben Wallace, the deputy shadow Scottish Secretary, pressed Mr Straw on why he was “blocking” the release of the note about two phone calls he took from Sir Mark Allen, a BP consultant.
“It’s odd a man from BP rings you up, the position changes, an oil deal is signed and nowhere in the process is the victim included.”
Mr Straw replied that no promise or hint was given to Libya that in return for an bilateral arrangement, Mr Megrahi would be released.
[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."]
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