LONDON – The Scottish government denied yesterday it had any contact with oil firm BP before its decision last year to release the Libyan man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing.
It said it had transferred Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to Tripoli purely on compassionate grounds.
“We had absolutely no representations from BP,” a spokesman for the Scottish administration said. “Mr 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.” Scotland has its own legal powers within the British political system.
The United States Senate foreign relations committee said on Thursday it would ask BP officials to testify after the UK-based oil giant said it had lobbied the British government in 2007 over a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. The company said it was concerned Megrahi’s continued imprisonment in Scotland could negatively affect an offshore oil drilling deal with Libya.
Megrahi was the only person convicted of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in 2001.
Scotland released Megrahi last August after being advised he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and had as little as three months to live. He returned to Tripoli and is still alive.
The British government has always maintained Megrahi’s release was an issue for Scotland in which it could not and did not interfere. Britain’s ambassador to Washington Nigel Sheinwald told the Senate committee in a letter on Thursday: “Whilst we disagreed with the decision to release him, we have to respect the independence of the process.”
BP has also said it was not involved in any discussions regarding Megrahi’s release.
British prime minister David Cameron and US president Barack Obama are to meet on Tuesday at the White House, where the leaders are expected to discuss BP following its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A spokesman for Mr Cameron said it was not known if Megrahi's release would be raised. – ( Reuters)