BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron has said the release from prison last year of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was “completely and utterly wrong”.
However, Mr Cameron, who arrived in Washington last night for talks today with US president Barack Obama, ruled out meeting US senators for discussions on claims that oil firm BP lobbied for Megrahi’s release.
The senators have pushed for a Congressional investigation into allegations that BP put pressure on the then-Labour government to have the Libyan freed so it could win contracts in Libya.
Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds from a Scottish jail last August after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and was said to have only three months to live. He is still alive and living in Libya.
“I have no idea of what BP did. I’m not responsible for BP,” Mr Cameron said. “All I know is, as leader of the opposition, I couldn’t have been more clear. I thought the release of al-Megrahi was completely and utterly wrong.
“He was convicted for being the biggest mass murderer in British history. I saw no case whatsoever for releasing him from prison.”
Foreign secretary William Hague has already told Washington there is no evidence that Megrahi’s release was linked to the subsequent awarding of a £900 million (€1.059 billion) oil-exploration contract by the Libyan government to BP.
The Senate foreign relations committee is to hold an inquiry into the circumstances of the Libyan’s release. So far it has not decided on the list of witnesses, but there is speculation it could press to question former justice secretary Jack Straw and former BP chief executive Lord Browne.
Scottish first minister Alex Salmond said the Edinburgh administration had not been lobbied by BP, and had rejected Libya’s request to have Megrahi released under a prisoner transfer deal with the UK. The release was on compassionate grounds, he 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,” Mr Salmond said.
