Britain, Scotland to show Lockerbie correspondence

[September 01, 2009]  LONDON (AP) -- The U.K. and Scottish governments on Tuesday are making public their correspondence on the release of the Lockerbie bomber, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted once again that his government played no part in the decision to let Abdel Baset al-Megrahi return to Libya.

The moves follow weekend media claims that the British government struck a deal with Libyan authorities to include al-Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement because that was considered to be in Britain's interests at a time when a major oil deal was being negotiated.

Brown told the Financial Times the decision to release al-Megrahi rested with the Scottish government in Edinburgh. He also said he told Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi at the Group of 8 meetings in Italy in July that his administration had no role in the matter.

"I made it absolutely clear to him then that this was not a decision, the future and fate of Mr. al-Megrahi, that we as the United Kingdom could take," the newspaper quoted Brown as saying. "It was a matter for the Scottish Executive, and it was their decision, and their decision alone, that would decide it."

The Sunday Times, citing leaked correspondence between Justice Secretary Jack Straw and his Scottish counterpart Kenny MacAskill, said the decision not to exclude al-Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement -- as had originally been requested by Scotland -- was made as "wider negotiations" with the government of Libya continued.

Straw immediately dismissed as "simply untrue" any suggestion that economic considerations had an effect on the decision to release al-Megrahi.

The release of al-Megrahi was sharply criticized by victims' families in the United States, President Barack Obama and FBI director Robert Mueller.

Writing in Tuesday's editions of The Times, Conservative leader David Cameron said the decision to release al-Megrahi "has crossed continents and damaged our relationship with our closest ally, America. It has been a fiasco." Cameron said British ministers need to reveal the extent of their conversations with both the Libyan and Scottish governments.

A spokesman for the Scottish executive said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy that Edinburgh intended to make public minutes of a meeting between al-Megrahi and MacAskill, plus prison and parole board reports and letters from victims' families.

Downing Street has said all "relevant correspondence" between British ministers and the Scottish government will be released.

Al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988, has terminal prostate cancer. MacAskill decided last month that the bomber would be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya, rejecting the option of sending al-Megrahi home under the prisoner transfer agreement.

Compassionate release is a standard part of Scottish justice for dying prisoners.

Libya's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said al-Megrahi's health was failing, and television pictures from Britain's Channel 4 showed him lying in a hospital bed, an oxygen mask on his face.

"He is in the hospital, he is a dying man; it is normal that he came to spend his last few days in Libya," Mohammed Siala told The Associated Press.

There was no way to independently verify al-Megrahi's condition, and the Libyan official offered no further details.

Before being released on compassionate grounds, al-Megrahi was thoroughly examined by top British doctors. Questions have been raised, however, about the seriousness of al-Megrahi's condition, following remarks by his father that suggested he was not dying.

[Associated Press; By JENNIFER QUINN]

Associated Press writers Ben McConville in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Alfred De Montesquiou, in Tripoli, Libya contributed to this report.

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