[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Labour leadership contender David Miliband has condemned the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as clearly wrong.
His comments in an exclusive interview in The Herald today represent a dramatic change in his previous position on Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s release on medical grounds.
They were made as criticism of the decision by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill intensified on both sides of the Atlantic.
The SNP last night hit back at the shadow foreign secretary’s comments. A source said: “This ludicrous about-turn by Miliband will damage his credibility and do him absolutely no good, either in his party or anywhere else.” (...)
When Labour was in government Miliband avoided commenting on the rights or wrongs of MacAskill’s ruling, but he now suggests the medical evidence, which said Megrahi had only three months to live, was flawed.
Asked if it was a mistake to release Megrahi, Miliband told The Herald: “It was clearly wrong because it was done on the basis he had less than three months to live and it’s now 11 months on.”
The frontrunner to succeed Gordon Brown as Labour leader added: “The decision was made in accordance with our constitution and so it was a decision for the Scottish minister to make.
“Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds and, as I understand it, that depends on him having less than three months to live, so something has gone badly wrong.”
Miliband acknowledges MacAskill made his decision in good faith but stresses he understands the anger felt by families of the American victims. This is in sharp contrast to his earlier reaction to the Libyan’s release in August last year.
In a Commons statement in October, Miliband pointed out that British interests “would be damaged, perhaps badly, if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison rather than Libya”. (...)
Last night, a Scottish Government source said: “It was David Miliband’s own government that did the deal in the desert and Miliband was Foreign Secretary when the UK signed the PTA with Libya with the clear intention of sending Megrahi back to Libya.
“It was tawdry and Kenny MacAskill rightly rejected the PTA application. This ludicrous about-turn by Miliband will damage his credibility.”
[For an interesting comment on the politics of Miliband's change of heart, see this article on The First Post website.
The letters page of today's edition of The Herald contains two interesting contributions. The first, from Colin Chilton reads:
"So the Americans and the UK Conservative Party want a full public inquiry into the release of Abdelbaset Mohmed Al Megrahi ...
"After almost 22 years is it not time we had a full public inquiry into the events of that terrible night when PanAm flight 103 crashed near Lockerbie? All we had in the aftermath was a Fatal Accident Inquiry which is obviously more limited in its scope than a full inquiry. Surely if the Westminster and US Governments are so keen to see justice is done that they will release all information pertaining to this matter and not just the evidence that suits them.
"So many unanswered questions remain from the Lockerbie disaster, from the Americans who were at the scene within two hours poring through the debris, to the sudden switch of investigation from Syria to Libya which happened rather conveniently when Libya was the only country on Iraq’s side in 1991 during the Gulf War of that year where the Americans needed Syrian support. If the Americans and UK Conservatives are so keen to see justice is done, let’s see them open the files after all what do they have to hide?"
The second, from Tom Minogue, echoes his earlier letter in The Scotsman. The three letters in that newspaper -- and the readers' comments -- are also of interest.]
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
British PM agrees to see US senators on Lockerbie
[This is the headline over an Agence France Presse news agency report. It reads in part:]
British Prime Minister David Cameron has agreed to meet during his visit to Washington with four US senators angry over the Lockerbie bomber's release, his spokesman said Tuesday.
The British embassy in the US capital had originally said Cameron would not have time to meet the lawmakers as he had a full schedule, and would instead ask British Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald to see them.
But his spokesman later said the prime minister, on his first visit to Washington since taking office in May, had changed his plans and would invite the senators for a discussion later Tuesday at the British ambassador's residence.
"The prime minister recognises the strength of feeling and knows how important it is to reassure the families of the victims," said the spokesman.
"We are happy to see them face to face and find time in the diary."
Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey wrote a letter to Cameron Monday asking to meet with him to discuss the Lockerbie case. (...)
Menendez earlier described Cameron's initial refusal to meet with him and his fellow senators as "disappointing", adding that "it is critical for us to get the full story from the British government."
[Well, it certainly didn't take long for this British poodle to see the wisdom of complying with his US master's wishes.
The BBC News report on the Prime Minister's speedy volte face can be read here.]
British Prime Minister David Cameron has agreed to meet during his visit to Washington with four US senators angry over the Lockerbie bomber's release, his spokesman said Tuesday.
The British embassy in the US capital had originally said Cameron would not have time to meet the lawmakers as he had a full schedule, and would instead ask British Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald to see them.
But his spokesman later said the prime minister, on his first visit to Washington since taking office in May, had changed his plans and would invite the senators for a discussion later Tuesday at the British ambassador's residence.
"The prime minister recognises the strength of feeling and knows how important it is to reassure the families of the victims," said the spokesman.
"We are happy to see them face to face and find time in the diary."
Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey wrote a letter to Cameron Monday asking to meet with him to discuss the Lockerbie case. (...)
Menendez earlier described Cameron's initial refusal to meet with him and his fellow senators as "disappointing", adding that "it is critical for us to get the full story from the British government."
[Well, it certainly didn't take long for this British poodle to see the wisdom of complying with his US master's wishes.
The BBC News report on the Prime Minister's speedy volte face can be read here.]
Monday, 19 July 2010
Clinton urges review of decision to release Libyan
[This is the headline over a report by the Associated Press news agency. It reads in part:]
The Obama administration has asked the Scottish and British governments to review the decision last summer to release the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie airliner bombing.
In letters to US lawmakers, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the US was encouraging the Scottish and British authorities to review the underlying facts and circumstances leading to the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. (...)
Clinton's spokesman, PJ Crowley, told reporters Monday that such a review would provide reassurance about the credibility of the decision to free the Libyan on humanitarian grounds, but he doubted it would reverse the decision.
"Everybody has an interest in making sure that this was a decision that was made freely, based on the best information available and did not represent any inappropriate or skewed actions," Crowley said. (...)
[Mrs Clinton] said [in the letters to the four senators] US officials will continue to argue that al-Megrahi should not be a free man.
"To that end, we are encouraging the Scottish and British authorities to review again the underlying facts and circumstances leading to the release of al-Megrahi and to consider any new information that has come to light since his release," she wrote.
As to a possible BP link, Clinton wrote that she was aware of media reports on the subject, but said that the decision on whether to release al-Megrahi fell exclusively to the Scottish government under local law. Still, Clinton said she opposed the decision, "whatever the rationale."
[The full text of Secretary Clinton's letter can be read here.]
The Obama administration has asked the Scottish and British governments to review the decision last summer to release the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie airliner bombing.
In letters to US lawmakers, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the US was encouraging the Scottish and British authorities to review the underlying facts and circumstances leading to the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. (...)
Clinton's spokesman, PJ Crowley, told reporters Monday that such a review would provide reassurance about the credibility of the decision to free the Libyan on humanitarian grounds, but he doubted it would reverse the decision.
"Everybody has an interest in making sure that this was a decision that was made freely, based on the best information available and did not represent any inappropriate or skewed actions," Crowley said. (...)
[Mrs Clinton] said [in the letters to the four senators] US officials will continue to argue that al-Megrahi should not be a free man.
"To that end, we are encouraging the Scottish and British authorities to review again the underlying facts and circumstances leading to the release of al-Megrahi and to consider any new information that has come to light since his release," she wrote.
As to a possible BP link, Clinton wrote that she was aware of media reports on the subject, but said that the decision on whether to release al-Megrahi fell exclusively to the Scottish government under local law. Still, Clinton said she opposed the decision, "whatever the rationale."
[The full text of Secretary Clinton's letter can be read here.]
Dalyell attacks Scottish Crown Office over Megrahi case
A former Labour MP has accused the Scottish Crown Office of behaving "deceitfully and disgracefully" over its handling of the Lockerbie bombing case.
Veteran Labour figure Tam Dalyell made the comments after a Tory MP called for a public inquiry into the release of the only man convicted of the atrocity Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
Mr Megrahi was finally released last year on compassionate grounds by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. Many, including a number of families of those killed, believe that Mr Megrahi was a scapegoat and should never have been convicted of the bombing. Others, including the US government, condemned Mr MacAskill's decision.
Mr Dalyell, an ex-Father of the Commons who repeatedly raised the issue of Lockerbie, said: "My political opponents Mr Salmond and Mr MacAskill were quite right to release Mr Megrahi.
"They know perfectly well that he is an innocent man in relation to Lockerbie. It is I suppose understandable that they cannot as SNP leaders say so, since to do so would reflect appallingly on the Crown Office in Edinburgh which has behaved deceitfully and disgracefully over 20 years and on the quality of Scottish justice."
He continued: "If in their heart of hearts they had thought Mr Megrahi guilty they would in my opinion certainly not have released him."
Tory backbencher Daniel Kawczynski, who is chairman of the Westminster all-party group on Libya, called for a public inquiry into the decision yesterday and said Mr MacAskill should apologise for the "huge error" in releasing Mr Megrahi almost a year ago.
Mr MacAskill has already said he would be prepared to assist any inquiry held into circumstances surrounding Mr Megrahi's release.
[From an article just published on the website of the Morning Star.]
Veteran Labour figure Tam Dalyell made the comments after a Tory MP called for a public inquiry into the release of the only man convicted of the atrocity Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
Mr Megrahi was finally released last year on compassionate grounds by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. Many, including a number of families of those killed, believe that Mr Megrahi was a scapegoat and should never have been convicted of the bombing. Others, including the US government, condemned Mr MacAskill's decision.
Mr Dalyell, an ex-Father of the Commons who repeatedly raised the issue of Lockerbie, said: "My political opponents Mr Salmond and Mr MacAskill were quite right to release Mr Megrahi.
"They know perfectly well that he is an innocent man in relation to Lockerbie. It is I suppose understandable that they cannot as SNP leaders say so, since to do so would reflect appallingly on the Crown Office in Edinburgh which has behaved deceitfully and disgracefully over 20 years and on the quality of Scottish justice."
He continued: "If in their heart of hearts they had thought Mr Megrahi guilty they would in my opinion certainly not have released him."
Tory backbencher Daniel Kawczynski, who is chairman of the Westminster all-party group on Libya, called for a public inquiry into the decision yesterday and said Mr MacAskill should apologise for the "huge error" in releasing Mr Megrahi almost a year ago.
Mr MacAskill has already said he would be prepared to assist any inquiry held into circumstances surrounding Mr Megrahi's release.
[From an article just published on the website of the Morning Star.]
Megrahi inquiry 'is kicking BP while it's down'
The BP spill and a senate inquiry in the release of the Lockerbie could overshadow David Cameron's visit to the US. But former UK Libyan ambassador Oliver Miles tells Channel 4 News the al-Megrahi inquiry is a case of kicking BP while it is down. (...)
You told Channel 4 News last year that you thought there had been a deal on al-Megrahi's release. How would it have worked?
The problem is this: why did Megrahi and Libya decide to abandon the appeal. It was probably Libya rather than Megrahi, because Megrahi was very ill and had given the Libyans full powers to act on his behalf.
The obvious reason for abandoning it was that it was a precondition under the prisoner transfer agreement – but the PTA wasn't actually used. And under Scottish humanitarian arrangements, it wasn't a precondition. It means we're left with an unanswered question as to why he abandoned it.
So there's a mystery there. The only half-solution I can think of is that someone convinced the Libyans or Megrahi that this was the only way he’d get a ticket home.
And has UK-Libya trade improved since al-Megrahi's release?
UK trade has improved. That's a fact if you believe the statistics. But whether one can link it to Megrahi or any other political factor, I would doubt.
The position I probably was taking last year and my feeling now is that if this had gone wrong, it would have had a serious negative impact on relations, including trade.
Put it this way. I was in Libya in May leading a delegation of British business people, and Megrahi wasn't mentioned - and I would have been amazed if he had been.
What will the US Senate inquiry reveal?
It seems to be there is no basis for an inquiry at all. Why are they raising this? The answer, to be blunt, is because of BP? Everybody knows that BP s a baddie, and when they're nearly down, this is the time to kick them.
Libya knows the only way it can achieve a boost in oil production is by bringing in the world's biggest oil companies – that’s the country has signed a deal with BP, with Shell and with Exxon Mobil as well.
[From a report on the Channel 4 News website.]
You told Channel 4 News last year that you thought there had been a deal on al-Megrahi's release. How would it have worked?
The problem is this: why did Megrahi and Libya decide to abandon the appeal. It was probably Libya rather than Megrahi, because Megrahi was very ill and had given the Libyans full powers to act on his behalf.
The obvious reason for abandoning it was that it was a precondition under the prisoner transfer agreement – but the PTA wasn't actually used. And under Scottish humanitarian arrangements, it wasn't a precondition. It means we're left with an unanswered question as to why he abandoned it.
So there's a mystery there. The only half-solution I can think of is that someone convinced the Libyans or Megrahi that this was the only way he’d get a ticket home.
And has UK-Libya trade improved since al-Megrahi's release?
UK trade has improved. That's a fact if you believe the statistics. But whether one can link it to Megrahi or any other political factor, I would doubt.
The position I probably was taking last year and my feeling now is that if this had gone wrong, it would have had a serious negative impact on relations, including trade.
Put it this way. I was in Libya in May leading a delegation of British business people, and Megrahi wasn't mentioned - and I would have been amazed if he had been.
What will the US Senate inquiry reveal?
It seems to be there is no basis for an inquiry at all. Why are they raising this? The answer, to be blunt, is because of BP? Everybody knows that BP s a baddie, and when they're nearly down, this is the time to kick them.
Libya knows the only way it can achieve a boost in oil production is by bringing in the world's biggest oil companies – that’s the country has signed a deal with BP, with Shell and with Exxon Mobil as well.
[From a report on the Channel 4 News website.]
Cameron criticises al-Megrahi release before US visit
[This is the headline over a report on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]
David Cameron has attacked the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, ahead of his first official visit to the US as PM.
Mr Cameron described the Scottish government decision to free Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last year as "completely wrong".
The US Congress is investigating the background to the decision amid claims of lobbying by oil firm BP over it. (...)
Mr Cameron is expected to discuss ... the Lockerbie case during his first visit to the White House as prime minister on Tuesday. (...)
Asked about the decision in August to free Libyan al-Megrahi after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three months to live, Mr Cameron stressed it had been a decision for the Scottish government alone.
However, he said he "deeply regrets" the pain the decision caused to the relatives of the 270 mainly US citizens, killed in the 1988 bombing.
"All I know is, as leader of the opposition, I could not have been more clear that I thought the decision to release al-Megrahi was completely and utterly wrong," he told BBC Breakfast.
Asked whether BP - which has lucrative oil contracts in Libya - had lobbied for al-Megrahi's release, he said: "I have no idea what BP did. I am not responsible for BP."
Foreign Secretary William Hague has written to his US counterpart, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, stating that there was no evidence of BP involvement in the decision.
BP has acknowledged that it warned the previous Labour government of a possible "negative impact on UK commercial interests" of slow progress being made agreeing a separate prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
But it has insisted that it had no discussions with either the UK or Scottish government over the issue.
On Sunday, Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski called for a full public inquiry into the decision to release al-Megrahi.
[The four senators who triggered this furore have now written to David Cameron asking for a meeting while he is in the United States. But it appears from a report on the BBC News website that the request has been refused:]
"UK Prime Minister David Cameron will not meet four US senators to discuss allegations BP lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
"But the British embassy said Mr Cameron had a full schedule on his US trip and the senators could meet the ambassador."
David Cameron has attacked the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, ahead of his first official visit to the US as PM.
Mr Cameron described the Scottish government decision to free Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last year as "completely wrong".
The US Congress is investigating the background to the decision amid claims of lobbying by oil firm BP over it. (...)
Mr Cameron is expected to discuss ... the Lockerbie case during his first visit to the White House as prime minister on Tuesday. (...)
Asked about the decision in August to free Libyan al-Megrahi after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three months to live, Mr Cameron stressed it had been a decision for the Scottish government alone.
However, he said he "deeply regrets" the pain the decision caused to the relatives of the 270 mainly US citizens, killed in the 1988 bombing.
"All I know is, as leader of the opposition, I could not have been more clear that I thought the decision to release al-Megrahi was completely and utterly wrong," he told BBC Breakfast.
Asked whether BP - which has lucrative oil contracts in Libya - had lobbied for al-Megrahi's release, he said: "I have no idea what BP did. I am not responsible for BP."
Foreign Secretary William Hague has written to his US counterpart, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, stating that there was no evidence of BP involvement in the decision.
BP has acknowledged that it warned the previous Labour government of a possible "negative impact on UK commercial interests" of slow progress being made agreeing a separate prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
But it has insisted that it had no discussions with either the UK or Scottish government over the issue.
On Sunday, Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski called for a full public inquiry into the decision to release al-Megrahi.
[The four senators who triggered this furore have now written to David Cameron asking for a meeting while he is in the United States. But it appears from a report on the BBC News website that the request has been refused:]
"UK Prime Minister David Cameron will not meet four US senators to discuss allegations BP lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. (...)
"But the British embassy said Mr Cameron had a full schedule on his US trip and the senators could meet the ambassador."
Salmond: Ask Blair about Megrahi
Alex Salmond told US senators they should direct questions about a prisoner transfer agreement for the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing at former prime minister Tony Blair.
The First Minister has also accused a Tory MP of calling for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi to be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip. His comments followed a weekend of renewed questions in the US and London about the decision to return Megrahi to Libya. Salmond said a Senate hearing should call the former prime minister to give evidence about the “deal in the desert” which paved the way for BP to invest £450 million in exploring Libya’s oil reserves.
Almost a year after Megrahi, who is suffering from prostate cancer, was freed on compassionate grounds by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, a group of Democratic senators is demanding an inquiry into claims the oil giant lobbied for his release to smooth a deal. An influential Senate committee is also to examine the case.
A spokesman for Salmond said: “If the US Senate wants to get the truth about the deal in the desert by the UK and Libyan governments in 2007, they should call Tony Blair to give evidence. Blair was its architect – he would be the one who knows about an oil deal.”
Salmond’s spokesman dismissed a call for a UK Government inquiry by Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, chairman of Westminster’s all-party group on Libya. He has written to David Cameron asking how the Scottish Government can be held to account and asking for more information on UK Government involvement.
Salmond’s spokesman said: “As far as Daniel Kawczynski is concerned, he wrote to the Justice Secretary in August last year saying that al-Megrahi should be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip, which is as extraordinary as it is inappropriate in relation to determining applications for prisoner transfer or compassionate release.”
The issue threatens to overshadow David Cameron’s first visit to Washington as Prime Minister tomorrow.
In a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “There is no evidence that corroborates in any way the allegations of BP involvement in the Scottish Executive’s decision to release Megrahi.”
But Hague also said that the release was “a mistake”.
MacAskill said he would “support a wider UK public inquiry or United Nations investigation capable of examining all of the issues related to the Lockerbie atrocity, which go well beyond Scotland’s jurisdiction”.
[From an article in today's edition of The Herald by Political Editor Brian Currie.]
The First Minister has also accused a Tory MP of calling for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi to be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip. His comments followed a weekend of renewed questions in the US and London about the decision to return Megrahi to Libya. Salmond said a Senate hearing should call the former prime minister to give evidence about the “deal in the desert” which paved the way for BP to invest £450 million in exploring Libya’s oil reserves.
Almost a year after Megrahi, who is suffering from prostate cancer, was freed on compassionate grounds by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, a group of Democratic senators is demanding an inquiry into claims the oil giant lobbied for his release to smooth a deal. An influential Senate committee is also to examine the case.
A spokesman for Salmond said: “If the US Senate wants to get the truth about the deal in the desert by the UK and Libyan governments in 2007, they should call Tony Blair to give evidence. Blair was its architect – he would be the one who knows about an oil deal.”
Salmond’s spokesman dismissed a call for a UK Government inquiry by Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, chairman of Westminster’s all-party group on Libya. He has written to David Cameron asking how the Scottish Government can be held to account and asking for more information on UK Government involvement.
Salmond’s spokesman said: “As far as Daniel Kawczynski is concerned, he wrote to the Justice Secretary in August last year saying that al-Megrahi should be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip, which is as extraordinary as it is inappropriate in relation to determining applications for prisoner transfer or compassionate release.”
The issue threatens to overshadow David Cameron’s first visit to Washington as Prime Minister tomorrow.
In a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “There is no evidence that corroborates in any way the allegations of BP involvement in the Scottish Executive’s decision to release Megrahi.”
But Hague also said that the release was “a mistake”.
MacAskill said he would “support a wider UK public inquiry or United Nations investigation capable of examining all of the issues related to the Lockerbie atrocity, which go well beyond Scotland’s jurisdiction”.
[From an article in today's edition of The Herald by Political Editor Brian Currie.]
Government must block US interference
[This is the heading over a letter by Tom Minogue published in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads in part:]
Many of the huge number of online commentators on Eddie Barnes' article (17 July) were incensed by the possibility that Scotland's justice minister might be summoned to Washington to explain his decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
I was dismayed, but not surprised at the stance taken by the US as it is in keeping with the history of the Lockerbie trial.
Back in 2001 the United Nations-appointed independent observer to the trial at the Scots court in [the Netherlands], Professor Hans Koechler, voiced his serious concerns that senior US Justice Department officials were in the body of the court and appeared to be directing the Crown Office prosecution staff. (...)
Scotland has a history of subservient over-eagerness to do our American cousin's bidding - Alex Salmond's fawning over Donald Trump, for example - and if the Yanks were allowed to run the show at the Lockerbie trial, then it shouldn't surprise anyone if they attempt to interfere further in that saga by summoning our justice minister as if they were ordering a taxi.
If our legal system and officials have been tarnished by Lockerbie, then there is one redeeming aspect of the sorry affair and that is the fact that at long last one Scots lawyer, MSP Christine Grahame, has had the courage to point out that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) found that there was serious doubt as to the safety of Megrahi's conviction - something that Salmond, McAskill, and Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini have studiously avoided mentioning.
Mrs Grahame is also calling for the US to take part in a full inquiry into all of the circumstances surrounding the Lockerbie trial. Good for her. She typifies the best qualities of our nation: independent and brave; telling it like it is, without fear of our powerful neighbour across the pond, or of her bosses at Holyrood.
I fear that her doubts about Megrahi's trial and conviction, like those of the UN observer and the SCCRC, will not be taken seriously by the powers that be.
[The four readers' letters on the subject published in today's edition of The Herald are also worth reading.]
Many of the huge number of online commentators on Eddie Barnes' article (17 July) were incensed by the possibility that Scotland's justice minister might be summoned to Washington to explain his decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
I was dismayed, but not surprised at the stance taken by the US as it is in keeping with the history of the Lockerbie trial.
Back in 2001 the United Nations-appointed independent observer to the trial at the Scots court in [the Netherlands], Professor Hans Koechler, voiced his serious concerns that senior US Justice Department officials were in the body of the court and appeared to be directing the Crown Office prosecution staff. (...)
Scotland has a history of subservient over-eagerness to do our American cousin's bidding - Alex Salmond's fawning over Donald Trump, for example - and if the Yanks were allowed to run the show at the Lockerbie trial, then it shouldn't surprise anyone if they attempt to interfere further in that saga by summoning our justice minister as if they were ordering a taxi.
If our legal system and officials have been tarnished by Lockerbie, then there is one redeeming aspect of the sorry affair and that is the fact that at long last one Scots lawyer, MSP Christine Grahame, has had the courage to point out that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) found that there was serious doubt as to the safety of Megrahi's conviction - something that Salmond, McAskill, and Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini have studiously avoided mentioning.
Mrs Grahame is also calling for the US to take part in a full inquiry into all of the circumstances surrounding the Lockerbie trial. Good for her. She typifies the best qualities of our nation: independent and brave; telling it like it is, without fear of our powerful neighbour across the pond, or of her bosses at Holyrood.
I fear that her doubts about Megrahi's trial and conviction, like those of the UN observer and the SCCRC, will not be taken seriously by the powers that be.
[The four readers' letters on the subject published in today's edition of The Herald are also worth reading.]
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Tory MP calls on PM to hold inquiry into Megrahi release
A Tory MP has made a fresh call for a full public inquiry into the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
The chairman of Westminster's all-party group on Libya, Daniel Kawczynski, has written to the prime minister.
He urged David Cameron to hold Scottish ministers to account for their decision to allow Abdelbaset al-Megrahi home to Libya on compassionate grounds.
The Scottish government said an inquiry had already been held. (...)
The US Senate foreign relations committee said it would ask BP officials to testify after the company admitted lobbying the British government in 2007 over a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) with Libya.
The Scottish government denied having any contact with BP before its decision.
A spokesman for Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said the Scottish government had opposed the PTA between the UK and Libya, which was brokered by former prime minister Tony Blair.
The spokesman said Megrahi had been released on compassionate grounds.
"If the US Senate wants to get the truth about the 'deal in the desert' by the UK and Libyan governments in 2007, they should call Tony Blair to give evidence," the spokesman said.
"Blair was its architect - he would be the one who knows about an oil deal.
"Kenny MacAskill rejected Libya's prisoner transfer application for al-Megrahi and he based his decisions on both the PTA and the compassionate release application on strict justice criteria."
The spokesman added: "We have of course had an inquiry in the Scottish Parliament, and also by the Westminster Scottish Affairs Select Committee, which was very critical of the UK government for keeping Scottish ministers in the dark about Tony Blair's deal in the desert on a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya."
[From a report on the BBC News website.
I wonder precisely what powers Mr Kawczynski believes the Prime Minister (or, indeed, the UK Government) has to "hold Scottish ministers to account" in respect of a function (deciding on the compassionate release of a prisoner in a Scottish jail) that the law of the land confers upon the Scottish government. Or is this just a case of a British MP wanting to demonstrate that he can be just as daft and uninformed and publicity-hungry as a US senator?]
The chairman of Westminster's all-party group on Libya, Daniel Kawczynski, has written to the prime minister.
He urged David Cameron to hold Scottish ministers to account for their decision to allow Abdelbaset al-Megrahi home to Libya on compassionate grounds.
The Scottish government said an inquiry had already been held. (...)
The US Senate foreign relations committee said it would ask BP officials to testify after the company admitted lobbying the British government in 2007 over a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) with Libya.
The Scottish government denied having any contact with BP before its decision.
A spokesman for Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said the Scottish government had opposed the PTA between the UK and Libya, which was brokered by former prime minister Tony Blair.
The spokesman said Megrahi had been released on compassionate grounds.
"If the US Senate wants to get the truth about the 'deal in the desert' by the UK and Libyan governments in 2007, they should call Tony Blair to give evidence," the spokesman said.
"Blair was its architect - he would be the one who knows about an oil deal.
"Kenny MacAskill rejected Libya's prisoner transfer application for al-Megrahi and he based his decisions on both the PTA and the compassionate release application on strict justice criteria."
The spokesman added: "We have of course had an inquiry in the Scottish Parliament, and also by the Westminster Scottish Affairs Select Committee, which was very critical of the UK government for keeping Scottish ministers in the dark about Tony Blair's deal in the desert on a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya."
[From a report on the BBC News website.
I wonder precisely what powers Mr Kawczynski believes the Prime Minister (or, indeed, the UK Government) has to "hold Scottish ministers to account" in respect of a function (deciding on the compassionate release of a prisoner in a Scottish jail) that the law of the land confers upon the Scottish government. Or is this just a case of a British MP wanting to demonstrate that he can be just as daft and uninformed and publicity-hungry as a US senator?]
Did BP play a part in the release of the Lockerbie bomber?
[This is the headline over an article by Eddie Barnes in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday. It reads in part:]
Bob Monetti laughs sarcastically. "This is the story that never goes away, huh?" Just before Christmas in 1988, Monetti was preparing to welcome his son Richard back home. (...) But Richard never made it home.
Thirty-eight minutes after taking off from Heathrow Airport, he was murdered when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in the skies above Lockerbie.
Bob Monetti and the rest of the family drew some solace after his death from the links they formed here. "The only people who were heroes in this were the Scottish people. The people of Lockerbie were wonderful," he says. Then, just under year ago, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi - the man he is convinced killed his son - was released by Scottish ministers. His voice takes on a different tone. He sounds resigned to cynicism. "The Scots caved into the English so that these BP oil contracts could go ahead," he says. "BP does what BP does. They will make money any way they can. The thing that really has hurt is the Scottish reputation. They (the Scottish Government] have been fighting for independence and the first thing they do is cave in." (...)
The outrage felt in America last August when Al Megrahi was freed by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, on compassionate grounds has re-emerged with a vengeance. Scottish and UK ministers are once again facing accusations of having let him go for all the wrong reasons. This week, David Cameron heads to Washington for his first talks in the White House with Barack Obama, with Lockerbie one of the issues being raised. The outcry over the case suggests that the relationship between the UK and the US is no longer quite so special. (...)
The latest burst of senatorial anger over Lockerbie does not have its roots in Scotland but in the oil-filled waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Last week, BP finally plugged the leak in its broken well off the coast of Louisiana, a full 87 days after it first exploded. (...)
Halfway around the world, it emerged that Libya had given approval for BP to start a well in the Gulf of Sirt off the African coast. With awful timing, the oil firm's 2007 deal with Libya to begin exploiting the rich reserves held by the country, was finally being realised.
This was the deal, the Americans remembered, that had been linked to an agreement between the UK and Libyan government to allow prisoners including Al Megrahi to be transferred from one country to the other. BP's oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico was not the only thing about to blow. Their sense of injustice already high as a result of the BP oil spill, senators Robert Menendez, Kirsten Gillibrand and Frank Lautenberg decided to open a new front. "The question we now have to answer is, was this corporation willing to trade justice in the murder of 270 innocent people for oil profit?" (...)
Of more interest to the senators are the stories which have emerged in the UK following Al Megrahi's release about the oil firm's alleged involvement. The company reached its agreement with Libya in late 2007, in the wake of Tony Blair's historic meeting with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi - the so-called "deal in the desert". It was here that the pair first discussed, among other things, a prisoner transfer agreement. Quite what the pair actually agreed upon is still a matter of conjecture. For the Libyans, however, the terms of the deal were clear - Al Megrahi was involved. Speaking on Libyan TV last year, Gadaffi's son, Saif al-Islam Gadaffi told Al Megrahi: "In all the trade, oil and gas deals which I have supervised, you were there on the table. When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table."
BP now makes no bones that it raised the question of the prisoner transfer agreement which Libya wanted signed before the oil exploration deal was agreed. Sir Mark Allan, a former MI5 spy and a consultant for BP, lobbied former Justice Secretary Jack Straw to get the matter dealt with. A spokesman for BP said last week the firm was "concerned about the slow progress that was being made" to resolve the deal. Sir Mark contacted Straw to try to push things along. As it emerged last year, Straw was persuaded; agreeing to include Al Megrahi as part of the PTA deal. Hence the conspiracy has grown legs.
But this view of the saga has several weak points. First, as Straw himself pointed out, he never had the power to actually release Al Megrahi in the first place. So, while intelligence sources insist that Al Megrahi almost certainly came up in the Libya-UK talks, talk of a deal to release him remains fanciful, relying as it does on the improbable scenario of the UK Labour government strong-arming the SNP-led Scottish Government into doing what it wanted.
The UK ambassador to the USA, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, took the unusual step of writing to Kerry on the Senate Committee last week, urging him to effectively tone it down. "The British Government worked with British business to promote legitimate commercial interests with Libya," he wrote. "But there was no link between those legitimate commercial activities and the Scottish Executive's decision to release Megrahi."
As for that decision, no-one yet has come up with any explanation beyond the obvious one stated at the time. Despite a huge amount of correspondence being published since, there is no evidence that Kenny MacAskill was influenced by any commercial interests. He actually refused to release Al Megrahi under the terms of the prisoner transfer agreement negotiated by the British, with Alex Salmond having already made plain his opposition to it. Instead, with Al Megrahi's plea for clemency ringing in his ears, the Justice Secretary decided to show him compassion. Within St Andrew's House MacAskill's aides understand that American relatives disagree with the decision to release Al Megrahi for compassionate reasons - particularly as he remains alive. But there is frustration they are being dragged into a conspiracy in which they played no part. One senior source says: "Where were these senators in 2007 when Blair did his deal in the desert and what did they think the PTA was all about? Instead, they gave him standing ovations in the Capitol." (...)
Many come from Frank Duggan, another relative, who represents the Victims of Flight 103 group. "So the Brits are now saying it was a mistake to release Megrahi, but we didn't do it the Scots did, and that BP did lobby us but didn't mention Megrahi by name," he wrote on Friday. "Meanwhile, Gaddafi's son says we always spoke of Megrahi during the negotiations with BP. The Scots, on the other hand, say we never talked to BP, it was the Brits. And we let him go because he was clearly terminally ill. And this had nothing to do with the prisoner transfer agreement. Don't you think there are some questions to answer?"
The questions now look set to be put, with both MacAskill and Straw among those who may be called for testimony in Washington next week. But whether families such as the Monettis (...) will get the answers they have long awaited, is another matter entirely.
[The same newspaper's editorial on the subject can be read here and an article in The Independent on Sunday here.]
Bob Monetti laughs sarcastically. "This is the story that never goes away, huh?" Just before Christmas in 1988, Monetti was preparing to welcome his son Richard back home. (...) But Richard never made it home.
Thirty-eight minutes after taking off from Heathrow Airport, he was murdered when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in the skies above Lockerbie.
Bob Monetti and the rest of the family drew some solace after his death from the links they formed here. "The only people who were heroes in this were the Scottish people. The people of Lockerbie were wonderful," he says. Then, just under year ago, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi - the man he is convinced killed his son - was released by Scottish ministers. His voice takes on a different tone. He sounds resigned to cynicism. "The Scots caved into the English so that these BP oil contracts could go ahead," he says. "BP does what BP does. They will make money any way they can. The thing that really has hurt is the Scottish reputation. They (the Scottish Government] have been fighting for independence and the first thing they do is cave in." (...)
The outrage felt in America last August when Al Megrahi was freed by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, on compassionate grounds has re-emerged with a vengeance. Scottish and UK ministers are once again facing accusations of having let him go for all the wrong reasons. This week, David Cameron heads to Washington for his first talks in the White House with Barack Obama, with Lockerbie one of the issues being raised. The outcry over the case suggests that the relationship between the UK and the US is no longer quite so special. (...)
The latest burst of senatorial anger over Lockerbie does not have its roots in Scotland but in the oil-filled waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Last week, BP finally plugged the leak in its broken well off the coast of Louisiana, a full 87 days after it first exploded. (...)
Halfway around the world, it emerged that Libya had given approval for BP to start a well in the Gulf of Sirt off the African coast. With awful timing, the oil firm's 2007 deal with Libya to begin exploiting the rich reserves held by the country, was finally being realised.
This was the deal, the Americans remembered, that had been linked to an agreement between the UK and Libyan government to allow prisoners including Al Megrahi to be transferred from one country to the other. BP's oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico was not the only thing about to blow. Their sense of injustice already high as a result of the BP oil spill, senators Robert Menendez, Kirsten Gillibrand and Frank Lautenberg decided to open a new front. "The question we now have to answer is, was this corporation willing to trade justice in the murder of 270 innocent people for oil profit?" (...)
Of more interest to the senators are the stories which have emerged in the UK following Al Megrahi's release about the oil firm's alleged involvement. The company reached its agreement with Libya in late 2007, in the wake of Tony Blair's historic meeting with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi - the so-called "deal in the desert". It was here that the pair first discussed, among other things, a prisoner transfer agreement. Quite what the pair actually agreed upon is still a matter of conjecture. For the Libyans, however, the terms of the deal were clear - Al Megrahi was involved. Speaking on Libyan TV last year, Gadaffi's son, Saif al-Islam Gadaffi told Al Megrahi: "In all the trade, oil and gas deals which I have supervised, you were there on the table. When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table."
BP now makes no bones that it raised the question of the prisoner transfer agreement which Libya wanted signed before the oil exploration deal was agreed. Sir Mark Allan, a former MI5 spy and a consultant for BP, lobbied former Justice Secretary Jack Straw to get the matter dealt with. A spokesman for BP said last week the firm was "concerned about the slow progress that was being made" to resolve the deal. Sir Mark contacted Straw to try to push things along. As it emerged last year, Straw was persuaded; agreeing to include Al Megrahi as part of the PTA deal. Hence the conspiracy has grown legs.
But this view of the saga has several weak points. First, as Straw himself pointed out, he never had the power to actually release Al Megrahi in the first place. So, while intelligence sources insist that Al Megrahi almost certainly came up in the Libya-UK talks, talk of a deal to release him remains fanciful, relying as it does on the improbable scenario of the UK Labour government strong-arming the SNP-led Scottish Government into doing what it wanted.
The UK ambassador to the USA, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, took the unusual step of writing to Kerry on the Senate Committee last week, urging him to effectively tone it down. "The British Government worked with British business to promote legitimate commercial interests with Libya," he wrote. "But there was no link between those legitimate commercial activities and the Scottish Executive's decision to release Megrahi."
As for that decision, no-one yet has come up with any explanation beyond the obvious one stated at the time. Despite a huge amount of correspondence being published since, there is no evidence that Kenny MacAskill was influenced by any commercial interests. He actually refused to release Al Megrahi under the terms of the prisoner transfer agreement negotiated by the British, with Alex Salmond having already made plain his opposition to it. Instead, with Al Megrahi's plea for clemency ringing in his ears, the Justice Secretary decided to show him compassion. Within St Andrew's House MacAskill's aides understand that American relatives disagree with the decision to release Al Megrahi for compassionate reasons - particularly as he remains alive. But there is frustration they are being dragged into a conspiracy in which they played no part. One senior source says: "Where were these senators in 2007 when Blair did his deal in the desert and what did they think the PTA was all about? Instead, they gave him standing ovations in the Capitol." (...)
Many come from Frank Duggan, another relative, who represents the Victims of Flight 103 group. "So the Brits are now saying it was a mistake to release Megrahi, but we didn't do it the Scots did, and that BP did lobby us but didn't mention Megrahi by name," he wrote on Friday. "Meanwhile, Gaddafi's son says we always spoke of Megrahi during the negotiations with BP. The Scots, on the other hand, say we never talked to BP, it was the Brits. And we let him go because he was clearly terminally ill. And this had nothing to do with the prisoner transfer agreement. Don't you think there are some questions to answer?"
The questions now look set to be put, with both MacAskill and Straw among those who may be called for testimony in Washington next week. But whether families such as the Monettis (...) will get the answers they have long awaited, is another matter entirely.
[The same newspaper's editorial on the subject can be read here and an article in The Independent on Sunday here.]
The Sunday Herald on the BP/Megrahi furore
[The Sunday Herald contains a long article by James Cusick. The following are excerpts:]
In the current open season on oil company BP, a core of senators have switched their attentions from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to BP’s exploration deals with Libya – and allegations that the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi helped BP secure a $900 million deal.
In his visit to Washington next week, Prime Minister David Cameron will discover if the senators are merely showboating ahead of their mid-term elections or whether they are serious about dissecting the role of international diplomacy and back-stage politics in the rehabilitation of oil-rich rogue states. For one leading energy consultant in London, who has commercial ties to oil and gas companies operating in the Middle East, showboating would be the preferred option.
“If Capitol Hill really wants the full, dark picture, they’ll need to do more than call in BP to answer a few questions,” he says.
“They might start with George Bush, Tony Blair and Condi Rice. Jack Straw would help; so would Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States. As well as BP, they should talk to Shell, Marathon, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips, all of them. And, if they’ve time, Colonel Gaddafi’s son Seif and Musa Kusa, Libya’s former head of intelligence [and currently Foreign Minister]. This is a Pandora’s Box.”
Sir Nigel will be alongside Cameron in DC this week, just as he was alongside Tony Blair during his years as the British ambassador to the European Union, and later as Blair’s foreign policy adviser. Ahead of Cameron’s visit, it fell to Sir Nigel to state the coalition’s position on the release of Megrahi. “The new British Government is clear that Megrahi’s release was a mistake,” he said.
For Libyan diplomats, that will have come as a surprise. “Nigel and Tony” are regarded in Tripoli as the two figures who helped bring Megrahi home.
Operating behind the scenes and in direct contact with Gaddafi’s closest aides, it was Sir Nigel who – on Blair’s direct orders – helped broker the secret talks in 2003 between the UK and the US that eventually ended Libya’s exile and coaxed Gaddafi into ending his ambition to build a nuclear arsenal. After he and Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, had met Libyan officials, it was Sir Nigel who chaired a series of meetings in London with Libyan diplomats which sealed the deal.
In March the following year, Sir Nigel was with Blair when he visited Gaddafi’s tented complex in the desert outside Tripoli. One news paper report noted that it was 5,573 days since Pan Am Flight 103 had exploded over Lockerbie. Blair was the first British prime minister to visit Tripoli since Churchill, and his job was to confer international respectability on the Gaddafi regime and to re-open the commercial opportunities in one of the world’s least explored oil territories. (...)
Lurking in the background, however, was one unresolved issue: one that regularly presented tribal difficulties for Gaddafi in internal Libyan politics. This was Megrahi’s imprisonment in Scotland. (...)
After Blair’s meeting with Gaddafi in 2004, pressure increased on both the UK and US governments to create the necessary conditions for further commercial activity. But Megrahi was still an unresolved part of the Libyan jigsaw – and, felt many in the Foreign Office, a vital one. Quietly, the prospect of a prisoner transfer deal crept on to the diplomatic agenda.
Gaddafi’s son Seif has said that Megrahi’s release was a constant reference point in any trade talks. And in a meeting with Megrahi after he returned to Tripoli last year, Seif told him: “When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table.”
According to a US embassy source in London, Seif would “scare the hell out of Capitol Hill” if he gave a witness testimony. It would not be what he had to say about BP – but what he could say about anyone from any country, including the US, trying to secure new and lucrative business with Libya. (...)
When Blair eventually returned to Tripoli in May 2007 to sign the so-called deal in the desert – a major step towards Libya’s international rehabilitation – it was Sir Nigel who had designed the “memorandum of understanding”. This included, for the first time, an outline of a legal agreement on prisoner transfer. On the same day that Blair and Gaddafi shook hands, both Blair and Sir Nigel travelled to the Libyan city of Sirt to watch BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward and the Libyan National Oil Company’s chairman Shokri Ghanem sign an exploration deal worth $900m.
Hayward knew he was delivering something big for BP. “Our agreement is the start of an enduring long-term and mutually beneficial partnership with Libya,” he said. “With its potentially large resources of gas, favourable geographic location and improving investment climate, Libya has an enormous opportunity to be a source of clean energy for the world.” (...)
BP expected the prisoner transfer agreement to be dealt with quickly by Westminster. But shortly after the signing ceremony between Hayward and Ghanem – which, although it looked formal enough, was still only an outline deal – Libyan officials were told by UK lawyers that there might be a problem with returning Megrahi to Tripoli. Transfer or release of prisoners from a Scottish jail was not a matter for Number 10 but for the devolved government at Holyrood.
According to a senior UK judicial source, when the prospect of delays in any prisoner transfer was suggested to Libya, it was dismissed as nonsense. One Libyan source claimed there would be no delay; that “Nigel and Tony have assured us”. This source also believed Megrahi would be back in Libya within six months.
But BP had begun to appreciate the Scottish problem. By the late autumn of 2007, the company was said to be worried about the slow progress being made in concluding the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
Last week BP officially acknowledged this concern. “We were aware this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP’s exploration agreement,” the company said.
BP admits it lobbied the government, seeking to speed up the process of getting the transfer agreement into law. However, it denied it tried to intervene in the case of Megrahi in particular.
But Professor Black, the man who helped engineer the case at Zeist, says: “The prisoner transfer agreement and the potential release of Megrahi back to Libya have always been one and the same thing. It is disingenuous of BP to say they were different. Megrahi was always the name on the table. He was the only high-profile prisoner that mattered.”
Last year, Megrahi was released from jail on compassionate grounds by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary. MacAskill said the Libyan was in the final stages of prostate cancer and was expected to die within three months. He added that he was bound by Scottish values to release him and allow him to die in his home country. The transfer agreement – which the Scottish Government had criticised as unconstitutional because it had not been consulted – did not figure in the minister’s deliberations. (...)
The senate committee in Washington will care little about the constitutional in-fighting between Edinburgh and London. The former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has said that if Westminster had wanted to stop Megrahi leaving, it had the power to do so. “The last time I looked, Scotland wasn’t independent and doesn’t have powers over foreign policy,” said Bolton.
Although Sir Nigel says the UK Government believes the release of Megrahi was a mistake, he does not say if he thought it was mistake.
[Also in the Sunday Herald is an article by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill. It reads in part:]
My decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi last August was, as I made clear at the time and many times since, the right decision for the right reasons.
It was a decision based entirely upon the application for compassionate release that I was duty bound to consider. As I said then, it was not a decision I chose to make, but one I was obliged to make as Scotland’s Justice Secretary.
Megrahi was sent home to die according to the due process of Scots law, based on the medical report of the Scottish Prison Service director of health and care, and the recommendations of the parole board and prison governor – all of which have been published by the Scottish Government.
However, I was also faced with another, separate decision, in respect of Megrahi. That was the application before me for a transfer from Scotland under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed by the UK and Libyan governments.
I rejected that application because the US Government and the families of Lockerbie victims in the US had been led to believe such a prisoner transfer would not be possible for anyone convicted of the atrocity.
The Scottish Government has always totally opposed the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated between the UK and Libyan governments. The memorandum that led to the Agreement was agreed without our knowledge and against our wishes.
That is why we chose to reveal the secret talks between the then Labour Government and the Libyans, as soon as we learned of the “deal in the desert” between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi, with the First Minister making a statement to the Scottish Parliament on the issue as far back as June 2007. (...)
Let us be clear: the issues now being raised in the United States about BP refer to the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated by the governments of the UK and Libya, and so have nothing to do with the decision on compassionate release, which was a totally different process based on entirely different criteria.
And the Scottish Government had no contact from BP in relation to Megrahi.
We would always look to assist any properly constituted inquiry – and indeed we very much support a wider UK public inquiry or United Nations investigation capable of examining all the issues related to the Lockerbie atrocity, which go well beyond Scotland’s jurisdiction. That remains the case.
In terms of the new UK Government’s position on the Megrahi issue, we have known the Prime Minister’s opinion since last August, and he knows the due process of Scotland’s independent legal system was followed.
We also now know Professor Karol Sikora has rejected news paper reports that misrepresented his comments about Megrahi’s condition.
I said last August that Megrahi may die sooner or may die later than the three-month prognosis the experts then deemed to be a reasonable estimate of life expectancy – that is something over which we have had no control.
What is certain is the man rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing remains terminally ill with prostate cancer.
[Mr MacAskill's opinion that Mr Megrahi was "rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing" is one that many, including the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, do not share.]
In the current open season on oil company BP, a core of senators have switched their attentions from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to BP’s exploration deals with Libya – and allegations that the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi helped BP secure a $900 million deal.
In his visit to Washington next week, Prime Minister David Cameron will discover if the senators are merely showboating ahead of their mid-term elections or whether they are serious about dissecting the role of international diplomacy and back-stage politics in the rehabilitation of oil-rich rogue states. For one leading energy consultant in London, who has commercial ties to oil and gas companies operating in the Middle East, showboating would be the preferred option.
“If Capitol Hill really wants the full, dark picture, they’ll need to do more than call in BP to answer a few questions,” he says.
“They might start with George Bush, Tony Blair and Condi Rice. Jack Straw would help; so would Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States. As well as BP, they should talk to Shell, Marathon, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips, all of them. And, if they’ve time, Colonel Gaddafi’s son Seif and Musa Kusa, Libya’s former head of intelligence [and currently Foreign Minister]. This is a Pandora’s Box.”
Sir Nigel will be alongside Cameron in DC this week, just as he was alongside Tony Blair during his years as the British ambassador to the European Union, and later as Blair’s foreign policy adviser. Ahead of Cameron’s visit, it fell to Sir Nigel to state the coalition’s position on the release of Megrahi. “The new British Government is clear that Megrahi’s release was a mistake,” he said.
For Libyan diplomats, that will have come as a surprise. “Nigel and Tony” are regarded in Tripoli as the two figures who helped bring Megrahi home.
Operating behind the scenes and in direct contact with Gaddafi’s closest aides, it was Sir Nigel who – on Blair’s direct orders – helped broker the secret talks in 2003 between the UK and the US that eventually ended Libya’s exile and coaxed Gaddafi into ending his ambition to build a nuclear arsenal. After he and Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, had met Libyan officials, it was Sir Nigel who chaired a series of meetings in London with Libyan diplomats which sealed the deal.
In March the following year, Sir Nigel was with Blair when he visited Gaddafi’s tented complex in the desert outside Tripoli. One news paper report noted that it was 5,573 days since Pan Am Flight 103 had exploded over Lockerbie. Blair was the first British prime minister to visit Tripoli since Churchill, and his job was to confer international respectability on the Gaddafi regime and to re-open the commercial opportunities in one of the world’s least explored oil territories. (...)
Lurking in the background, however, was one unresolved issue: one that regularly presented tribal difficulties for Gaddafi in internal Libyan politics. This was Megrahi’s imprisonment in Scotland. (...)
After Blair’s meeting with Gaddafi in 2004, pressure increased on both the UK and US governments to create the necessary conditions for further commercial activity. But Megrahi was still an unresolved part of the Libyan jigsaw – and, felt many in the Foreign Office, a vital one. Quietly, the prospect of a prisoner transfer deal crept on to the diplomatic agenda.
Gaddafi’s son Seif has said that Megrahi’s release was a constant reference point in any trade talks. And in a meeting with Megrahi after he returned to Tripoli last year, Seif told him: “When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table.”
According to a US embassy source in London, Seif would “scare the hell out of Capitol Hill” if he gave a witness testimony. It would not be what he had to say about BP – but what he could say about anyone from any country, including the US, trying to secure new and lucrative business with Libya. (...)
When Blair eventually returned to Tripoli in May 2007 to sign the so-called deal in the desert – a major step towards Libya’s international rehabilitation – it was Sir Nigel who had designed the “memorandum of understanding”. This included, for the first time, an outline of a legal agreement on prisoner transfer. On the same day that Blair and Gaddafi shook hands, both Blair and Sir Nigel travelled to the Libyan city of Sirt to watch BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward and the Libyan National Oil Company’s chairman Shokri Ghanem sign an exploration deal worth $900m.
Hayward knew he was delivering something big for BP. “Our agreement is the start of an enduring long-term and mutually beneficial partnership with Libya,” he said. “With its potentially large resources of gas, favourable geographic location and improving investment climate, Libya has an enormous opportunity to be a source of clean energy for the world.” (...)
BP expected the prisoner transfer agreement to be dealt with quickly by Westminster. But shortly after the signing ceremony between Hayward and Ghanem – which, although it looked formal enough, was still only an outline deal – Libyan officials were told by UK lawyers that there might be a problem with returning Megrahi to Tripoli. Transfer or release of prisoners from a Scottish jail was not a matter for Number 10 but for the devolved government at Holyrood.
According to a senior UK judicial source, when the prospect of delays in any prisoner transfer was suggested to Libya, it was dismissed as nonsense. One Libyan source claimed there would be no delay; that “Nigel and Tony have assured us”. This source also believed Megrahi would be back in Libya within six months.
But BP had begun to appreciate the Scottish problem. By the late autumn of 2007, the company was said to be worried about the slow progress being made in concluding the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
Last week BP officially acknowledged this concern. “We were aware this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP’s exploration agreement,” the company said.
BP admits it lobbied the government, seeking to speed up the process of getting the transfer agreement into law. However, it denied it tried to intervene in the case of Megrahi in particular.
But Professor Black, the man who helped engineer the case at Zeist, says: “The prisoner transfer agreement and the potential release of Megrahi back to Libya have always been one and the same thing. It is disingenuous of BP to say they were different. Megrahi was always the name on the table. He was the only high-profile prisoner that mattered.”
Last year, Megrahi was released from jail on compassionate grounds by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary. MacAskill said the Libyan was in the final stages of prostate cancer and was expected to die within three months. He added that he was bound by Scottish values to release him and allow him to die in his home country. The transfer agreement – which the Scottish Government had criticised as unconstitutional because it had not been consulted – did not figure in the minister’s deliberations. (...)
The senate committee in Washington will care little about the constitutional in-fighting between Edinburgh and London. The former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has said that if Westminster had wanted to stop Megrahi leaving, it had the power to do so. “The last time I looked, Scotland wasn’t independent and doesn’t have powers over foreign policy,” said Bolton.
Although Sir Nigel says the UK Government believes the release of Megrahi was a mistake, he does not say if he thought it was mistake.
[Also in the Sunday Herald is an article by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill. It reads in part:]
My decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi last August was, as I made clear at the time and many times since, the right decision for the right reasons.
It was a decision based entirely upon the application for compassionate release that I was duty bound to consider. As I said then, it was not a decision I chose to make, but one I was obliged to make as Scotland’s Justice Secretary.
Megrahi was sent home to die according to the due process of Scots law, based on the medical report of the Scottish Prison Service director of health and care, and the recommendations of the parole board and prison governor – all of which have been published by the Scottish Government.
However, I was also faced with another, separate decision, in respect of Megrahi. That was the application before me for a transfer from Scotland under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement signed by the UK and Libyan governments.
I rejected that application because the US Government and the families of Lockerbie victims in the US had been led to believe such a prisoner transfer would not be possible for anyone convicted of the atrocity.
The Scottish Government has always totally opposed the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated between the UK and Libyan governments. The memorandum that led to the Agreement was agreed without our knowledge and against our wishes.
That is why we chose to reveal the secret talks between the then Labour Government and the Libyans, as soon as we learned of the “deal in the desert” between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi, with the First Minister making a statement to the Scottish Parliament on the issue as far back as June 2007. (...)
Let us be clear: the issues now being raised in the United States about BP refer to the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated by the governments of the UK and Libya, and so have nothing to do with the decision on compassionate release, which was a totally different process based on entirely different criteria.
And the Scottish Government had no contact from BP in relation to Megrahi.
We would always look to assist any properly constituted inquiry – and indeed we very much support a wider UK public inquiry or United Nations investigation capable of examining all the issues related to the Lockerbie atrocity, which go well beyond Scotland’s jurisdiction. That remains the case.
In terms of the new UK Government’s position on the Megrahi issue, we have known the Prime Minister’s opinion since last August, and he knows the due process of Scotland’s independent legal system was followed.
We also now know Professor Karol Sikora has rejected news paper reports that misrepresented his comments about Megrahi’s condition.
I said last August that Megrahi may die sooner or may die later than the three-month prognosis the experts then deemed to be a reasonable estimate of life expectancy – that is something over which we have had no control.
What is certain is the man rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing remains terminally ill with prostate cancer.
[Mr MacAskill's opinion that Mr Megrahi was "rightly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing" is one that many, including the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, do not share.]
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Lockerbie hearings set to open can of worms
[This is the headline over an article on the website of Canada's National Post which displays an appreciation of the facts relating to Megrahi's repatriation and of the UK/Scottish constitutional position that is sadly lacking in most US commentaries. It reads:]
A US Senate hearing into BP's alleged involvement in the release of the Lockerbie bomber may be based on a false premise, but it has all the potential to open up a can of worms.
Senior senators are demanding to know whether "justice and punishment for terrorism took a back seat to back-room deals for an oil contract." BP will be quizzed over whether they lobbied for the release of Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in exchange for trade deals.
BP has denied any such thing, but with its reputation already tarnished by the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, a Senate hearing will be another opportunity to continue to vilify the company in the eyes of Americans.
However, what is already clear is that while Megrahi was sitting in a jail cell in Scotland, his future and trade with Libya were inextricably linked.
And it is questions about that link which has the potential to cause embarrassment in some quarters.
For years, Libya had petitioned the British government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement, allowing prisoners to be exchanged and serve sentences in their home countries. As Colonel Muammar's Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, later explained, for Libya the PTA was only ever concerned with one prisoner.
He told the Scottish ... newspaper [The Herald] last year, "For the last seven to eight years we have been trying very hard to transfer Mr. Megrahi to Libya to serve his sentence here and we have tried many times in the past to sign the PTA without mentioning Megrahi, but it was obvious we were targeting Megrahi and the PTA was on the table all the time."
BP, it has admitted, was also lobbying the British government to conclude a PTA with Libya.
On Thursday, BP said in a statement, "It is matter of public record that in late 2007 BP told the U.K. government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
"We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP's exploration agreement."
In May 2007, Britian and Libya agreed to sign a PTA. The agreement was ratified a year later in November 2008, at the time British prime minister Tony Blair signed the agreement he also witnessed the signing of a major BP exploration contract in Libya worth £500-million.
Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi told [T]he Herald, "It was part of the bargaining deal with the UK ... We signed an oil deal at the same time. The commerce and politics and deals were all with the PTA."
Scotland, meanwhile, had specifically asked for Megrahi to be excluded from the PTA, but Britain refused.
Months later, in May 2009, Libya applied to Scotland for Megrahi to be transferred under the PTA. Although Britian signed the PTA -- thus paving the way for any transfers under the deal -- it was up to Scotland whether they would agree to the transfer.
But Scotland found a major hurdle in the way.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney-General Eric Holder told Scotland that the US had been given assurances before Megrahi's trial that he would serve his full sentence in Scotland. Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill asked Britain for clarification about the assurances, but the government refused to answer.
It was because of those assurances that Mr. MacAskill decided not to agree to transfer Megrahi under the PTA.
At this point, it might appear that the efforts of BP and the British government -- who had both worked so hard to get a PTA signed -- had come to nought.
However, Mr. MacAskill then released Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
If, as Mr. MacAskill was told at the time, Megrahi only had a few months to live, it appears to have been the humanitarian thing to do.
But with reports that Megrahi might yet live another 10 years, the decision to release him and the background to it are going to come under severe scrutiny at the Senate hearing. It promises to be an uncomfortable time for some people.
A US Senate hearing into BP's alleged involvement in the release of the Lockerbie bomber may be based on a false premise, but it has all the potential to open up a can of worms.
Senior senators are demanding to know whether "justice and punishment for terrorism took a back seat to back-room deals for an oil contract." BP will be quizzed over whether they lobbied for the release of Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in exchange for trade deals.
BP has denied any such thing, but with its reputation already tarnished by the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, a Senate hearing will be another opportunity to continue to vilify the company in the eyes of Americans.
However, what is already clear is that while Megrahi was sitting in a jail cell in Scotland, his future and trade with Libya were inextricably linked.
And it is questions about that link which has the potential to cause embarrassment in some quarters.
For years, Libya had petitioned the British government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement, allowing prisoners to be exchanged and serve sentences in their home countries. As Colonel Muammar's Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, later explained, for Libya the PTA was only ever concerned with one prisoner.
He told the Scottish ... newspaper [The Herald] last year, "For the last seven to eight years we have been trying very hard to transfer Mr. Megrahi to Libya to serve his sentence here and we have tried many times in the past to sign the PTA without mentioning Megrahi, but it was obvious we were targeting Megrahi and the PTA was on the table all the time."
BP, it has admitted, was also lobbying the British government to conclude a PTA with Libya.
On Thursday, BP said in a statement, "It is matter of public record that in late 2007 BP told the U.K. government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
"We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP's exploration agreement."
In May 2007, Britian and Libya agreed to sign a PTA. The agreement was ratified a year later in November 2008, at the time British prime minister Tony Blair signed the agreement he also witnessed the signing of a major BP exploration contract in Libya worth £500-million.
Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi told [T]he Herald, "It was part of the bargaining deal with the UK ... We signed an oil deal at the same time. The commerce and politics and deals were all with the PTA."
Scotland, meanwhile, had specifically asked for Megrahi to be excluded from the PTA, but Britain refused.
Months later, in May 2009, Libya applied to Scotland for Megrahi to be transferred under the PTA. Although Britian signed the PTA -- thus paving the way for any transfers under the deal -- it was up to Scotland whether they would agree to the transfer.
But Scotland found a major hurdle in the way.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney-General Eric Holder told Scotland that the US had been given assurances before Megrahi's trial that he would serve his full sentence in Scotland. Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill asked Britain for clarification about the assurances, but the government refused to answer.
It was because of those assurances that Mr. MacAskill decided not to agree to transfer Megrahi under the PTA.
At this point, it might appear that the efforts of BP and the British government -- who had both worked so hard to get a PTA signed -- had come to nought.
However, Mr. MacAskill then released Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
If, as Mr. MacAskill was told at the time, Megrahi only had a few months to live, it appears to have been the humanitarian thing to do.
But with reports that Megrahi might yet live another 10 years, the decision to release him and the background to it are going to come under severe scrutiny at the Senate hearing. It promises to be an uncomfortable time for some people.
Clinton seeks UK explanation on Megrahi
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Hillary Clinton last night urged the UK Government to explain to American politicians the circumstances that led to the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing after David Cameron described the decision as wrong.
The US Secretary of State, who is looking into claims from US senators that BP lobbied for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Megrahi’s release in August last year as part of an oil deal with Libya, made the suggestion in a call to Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Her spokesman said Clinton had indicated “it might be appropriate for the UK Government to communicate with Congress to make sure they fully understand ... what transpired a year ago”.
The Prime Minister said through his official spokesman that he believed it had been a mistake to free Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal cancer, repeating the view of Britain’s ambassador to Washington Sir Nigel Sheinwald.
Cameron’s spokesman said: “He has said in the past that he believes that the decision was wrong. Obviously he respects the process (that allowed the Scottish Government to release Megrahi) ... but he said at the time he thought it was wrong.”
Last night Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the tragedy, criticised the “mass hysteria” and “misunderstanding” in the US in relation to the decision to release Megrahi.
“The public attitude in the US is to seek revenge against BP and this is harming America’s image,” he told The Herald. “There is no surprise in the idea of BP lobbying the UK Government but that does not change the fact that the decision to release Megrahi was not made by the UK Government.
“I think there is a mass hysteria in the US. Pursuing this line that BP lobbied for Megrahi’s release comes perilously close to saying the UK Government somehow put pressure on Scotland to release him.”
Sheinwald had said the UK Government believed that the decision had been a mistake. He also said claims Megrahi was released because of an oil deal involving BP were not true.
Sheinwald served as Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser during the negotiations that led to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in 2007. The Herald revealed that as early as 2005 secret talks were ongoing between the UK, US and Libya to get Megrahi back to Libya. Sheinwald was present at these negotiations and helped agree the infamous deal in the desert.
The deal was denounced by the Scottish Government.
Scottish ministers released Megrahi on compassionate grounds 11 months ago because medical experts said he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and was not expected to live more than three months.
A separate application between the UK and Libyan governments under the terms of the PTA was rejected by Scottish ministers. However, US senators are angry that in 2007 BP also sealed a £590 million exploration agreement with Libya. (...)
[An editorial headed "Misunderstandings muddy the waters over Megrahi’s release" in the same newspaper reads:]
Still they do not get it. It should not be a surprise that the heightening clamour over the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is founded on a massive misunderstanding of the circumstances leading to his release.
Facts can be conflated, manipulated or simply ignored when politics come into play. Such has happened in the case of Megrahi, who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and the role of the Scottish Government in sanctioning his release on compassionate grounds some 11 months ago.
There is a debate to have, one that takes on a sharper focus the longer Megrahi lives, about whether that decision, based on a medical report taking account of the views of oncologists involved in his care, was correct. But there is no sustainable debate about BP being prepared to “trade justice for oil profits”, despite the best (or worst) efforts of certain American senators to push that line. The allegation, which cannot be separated from anger in the United States with BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has no basis in fact, unless we have all been deceived on a massive scale (of which there is no evidence).
The claim BP lobbied the Scottish Government for Megrahi’s release is based on a failure to understand.
Perish the thought that such misunderstanding might also be wilful. BP has said it pressed Tony Blair’s government over the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) with the Libyans. But that deal had nothing to do with Megrahi’s release, a decision taken on separate grounds and by different means by an SNP administration that denounced the agreement. Yet it serves a purpose to conflate the two.
David Cameron had an opportunity to clarify matters ahead of meeting Barack Obama. By repeating his contention that Megrahi’s release was a mistake (also the President’s view) hours after Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain’s ambassador to the US, affirmed that was the UK Government’s position, the Prime Minister has failed to clarify matters. Singing from the same hymn sheet on Megrahi might serve the purposes of the special relationship but Sir Nigel’s role as Blair’s foreign policy adviser during the talks leading to the PTA has added to a sense of corrosive obfuscation. The choreography has been so rehearsed that we are now told Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, and William Hague, Foreign Secretary, agree Megrahi’s release was a mistake. That will play well in America, for all the wrong reasons. But it will serve no positive or substantive purpose in this country. If you must meddle, do so on the basis of fact.
[The Scotsman runs a report headlined "MacAskill could be summoned to Washington to testify on Megrahi". It can be read here. Once again, the readers' comments outshine the article.]
Hillary Clinton last night urged the UK Government to explain to American politicians the circumstances that led to the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing after David Cameron described the decision as wrong.
The US Secretary of State, who is looking into claims from US senators that BP lobbied for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Megrahi’s release in August last year as part of an oil deal with Libya, made the suggestion in a call to Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Her spokesman said Clinton had indicated “it might be appropriate for the UK Government to communicate with Congress to make sure they fully understand ... what transpired a year ago”.
The Prime Minister said through his official spokesman that he believed it had been a mistake to free Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal cancer, repeating the view of Britain’s ambassador to Washington Sir Nigel Sheinwald.
Cameron’s spokesman said: “He has said in the past that he believes that the decision was wrong. Obviously he respects the process (that allowed the Scottish Government to release Megrahi) ... but he said at the time he thought it was wrong.”
Last night Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the tragedy, criticised the “mass hysteria” and “misunderstanding” in the US in relation to the decision to release Megrahi.
“The public attitude in the US is to seek revenge against BP and this is harming America’s image,” he told The Herald. “There is no surprise in the idea of BP lobbying the UK Government but that does not change the fact that the decision to release Megrahi was not made by the UK Government.
“I think there is a mass hysteria in the US. Pursuing this line that BP lobbied for Megrahi’s release comes perilously close to saying the UK Government somehow put pressure on Scotland to release him.”
Sheinwald had said the UK Government believed that the decision had been a mistake. He also said claims Megrahi was released because of an oil deal involving BP were not true.
Sheinwald served as Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser during the negotiations that led to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in 2007. The Herald revealed that as early as 2005 secret talks were ongoing between the UK, US and Libya to get Megrahi back to Libya. Sheinwald was present at these negotiations and helped agree the infamous deal in the desert.
The deal was denounced by the Scottish Government.
Scottish ministers released Megrahi on compassionate grounds 11 months ago because medical experts said he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and was not expected to live more than three months.
A separate application between the UK and Libyan governments under the terms of the PTA was rejected by Scottish ministers. However, US senators are angry that in 2007 BP also sealed a £590 million exploration agreement with Libya. (...)
[An editorial headed "Misunderstandings muddy the waters over Megrahi’s release" in the same newspaper reads:]
Still they do not get it. It should not be a surprise that the heightening clamour over the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is founded on a massive misunderstanding of the circumstances leading to his release.
Facts can be conflated, manipulated or simply ignored when politics come into play. Such has happened in the case of Megrahi, who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, and the role of the Scottish Government in sanctioning his release on compassionate grounds some 11 months ago.
There is a debate to have, one that takes on a sharper focus the longer Megrahi lives, about whether that decision, based on a medical report taking account of the views of oncologists involved in his care, was correct. But there is no sustainable debate about BP being prepared to “trade justice for oil profits”, despite the best (or worst) efforts of certain American senators to push that line. The allegation, which cannot be separated from anger in the United States with BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has no basis in fact, unless we have all been deceived on a massive scale (of which there is no evidence).
The claim BP lobbied the Scottish Government for Megrahi’s release is based on a failure to understand.
Perish the thought that such misunderstanding might also be wilful. BP has said it pressed Tony Blair’s government over the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) with the Libyans. But that deal had nothing to do with Megrahi’s release, a decision taken on separate grounds and by different means by an SNP administration that denounced the agreement. Yet it serves a purpose to conflate the two.
David Cameron had an opportunity to clarify matters ahead of meeting Barack Obama. By repeating his contention that Megrahi’s release was a mistake (also the President’s view) hours after Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain’s ambassador to the US, affirmed that was the UK Government’s position, the Prime Minister has failed to clarify matters. Singing from the same hymn sheet on Megrahi might serve the purposes of the special relationship but Sir Nigel’s role as Blair’s foreign policy adviser during the talks leading to the PTA has added to a sense of corrosive obfuscation. The choreography has been so rehearsed that we are now told Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, and William Hague, Foreign Secretary, agree Megrahi’s release was a mistake. That will play well in America, for all the wrong reasons. But it will serve no positive or substantive purpose in this country. If you must meddle, do so on the basis of fact.
[The Scotsman runs a report headlined "MacAskill could be summoned to Washington to testify on Megrahi". It can be read here. Once again, the readers' comments outshine the article.]
Embarrassment all round as Megrahi lives
[This is the heading over a section of Richard Ingrams's column in today's edition of The Independent. It reads:]
By failing to die as predicted by Britain's top cancer specialist, the "Lockerbie bomber" Abdel Basset al-Megrahi has embarrassed David Cameron, who is now worried that the controversy over his release on compassionate grounds could cast a shadow over his visit to Washington next week. Accordingly, our ambassador in Washington, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, has issued an apparently heartfelt statement claiming that Megrahi's release was a mistake and is regretting "the continuing anguish" that it has caused to families of the Lockerbie victims. In addition, it is now claimed that BP was in some way responsible for Megrahi's release, as it helped to further good relations with Libya's Colonel Gaddafi.
While the media pursue these red herrings, the most likely reason for Megrahi's release will go unmentioned. It is generally forgotten that, at the time of his release, he was engaged in a lengthy appeal hearing against his original conviction. Evidence showing the flimsiness of the case against him would have been produced; well-founded allegations of the bribery of witnesses and the possible planting of evidence on the crash site by the CIA would have been aired. It could all have ended with the exposure of one of the most scandalous miscarriages of justice ever acknowledged in a British court. No wonder that in the circumstances the Justice Minister, Jack Straw, was so keen to see the back of Megrahi and the discontinuation of his appeal hearing.
By failing to die as predicted by Britain's top cancer specialist, the "Lockerbie bomber" Abdel Basset al-Megrahi has embarrassed David Cameron, who is now worried that the controversy over his release on compassionate grounds could cast a shadow over his visit to Washington next week. Accordingly, our ambassador in Washington, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, has issued an apparently heartfelt statement claiming that Megrahi's release was a mistake and is regretting "the continuing anguish" that it has caused to families of the Lockerbie victims. In addition, it is now claimed that BP was in some way responsible for Megrahi's release, as it helped to further good relations with Libya's Colonel Gaddafi.
While the media pursue these red herrings, the most likely reason for Megrahi's release will go unmentioned. It is generally forgotten that, at the time of his release, he was engaged in a lengthy appeal hearing against his original conviction. Evidence showing the flimsiness of the case against him would have been produced; well-founded allegations of the bribery of witnesses and the possible planting of evidence on the crash site by the CIA would have been aired. It could all have ended with the exposure of one of the most scandalous miscarriages of justice ever acknowledged in a British court. No wonder that in the circumstances the Justice Minister, Jack Straw, was so keen to see the back of Megrahi and the discontinuation of his appeal hearing.
Libyan oil official: Lockerbie wasn't part of BP talks
[This is the headline over a report on the CNN website. It reads in part:]
A top Libyan oil official on Friday denied allegations of an agreement to free the Lockerbie bomber in exchange for bolstered BP commercial interests in the country.
Britain and Libya had sparred over whether Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi should be included in a prisoner transfer agreement the two nations were negotiating. Under the agreement, Libyan prisoners in Britain would be transferred to Libya to serve out their sentences.
British officials and BP said the oil company's interests -- mainly, seeking a huge deal to drill for oil in Libya -- were a consideration in those talks.
In the end, al Megrahi was included in the transfer agreement, but he was never transferred to a Libyan jail. Instead, he was freed on what officials in Scotland said were humanitarian grounds separate from the agreement. (...)
"I was leading the negotiations on BP," said Shokri Ghanem, chairman of the National Oil Corp of Libya, [and a former prime minister] in an interview Friday with CNN's Richard Quest.
"I was the person who was negotiating the technical [points] and the whole agreement" for the oil company to drill off the Libyan coast, he said. "I never spoke on any political [issues], not did I accept any political interference."
Ghanem insisted Friday that the oil agreement was ratified in 2007 -- two years before al Megrahi's release. (...)
Earlier Friday, Britain's ambassador to the United States, Nigel Sheinwald, said the government believes it was wrong to let al Megrahi out of prison in August 2009 and return to his native Libya, but it was a decision taken by the Scottish executive, not the British government. Scotland has its own government that is responsible for most of the day-to-day issues there, including the justice system. (...)
The ambassador's statement came a day after the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced it will hold a hearing July 29 to examine whether BP may have played a role in lobbying for al Megrahi's release.
Ghanem dismissed the announcement as political posturing. "The US can do any hearing they want, this is their business," he said. "But we're a sovereign country. ... American Congress can do whatever they want, but senators, they have to give the impression they are US senators."
A top Libyan oil official on Friday denied allegations of an agreement to free the Lockerbie bomber in exchange for bolstered BP commercial interests in the country.
Britain and Libya had sparred over whether Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi should be included in a prisoner transfer agreement the two nations were negotiating. Under the agreement, Libyan prisoners in Britain would be transferred to Libya to serve out their sentences.
British officials and BP said the oil company's interests -- mainly, seeking a huge deal to drill for oil in Libya -- were a consideration in those talks.
In the end, al Megrahi was included in the transfer agreement, but he was never transferred to a Libyan jail. Instead, he was freed on what officials in Scotland said were humanitarian grounds separate from the agreement. (...)
"I was leading the negotiations on BP," said Shokri Ghanem, chairman of the National Oil Corp of Libya, [and a former prime minister] in an interview Friday with CNN's Richard Quest.
"I was the person who was negotiating the technical [points] and the whole agreement" for the oil company to drill off the Libyan coast, he said. "I never spoke on any political [issues], not did I accept any political interference."
Ghanem insisted Friday that the oil agreement was ratified in 2007 -- two years before al Megrahi's release. (...)
Earlier Friday, Britain's ambassador to the United States, Nigel Sheinwald, said the government believes it was wrong to let al Megrahi out of prison in August 2009 and return to his native Libya, but it was a decision taken by the Scottish executive, not the British government. Scotland has its own government that is responsible for most of the day-to-day issues there, including the justice system. (...)
The ambassador's statement came a day after the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced it will hold a hearing July 29 to examine whether BP may have played a role in lobbying for al Megrahi's release.
Ghanem dismissed the announcement as political posturing. "The US can do any hearing they want, this is their business," he said. "But we're a sovereign country. ... American Congress can do whatever they want, but senators, they have to give the impression they are US senators."
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