Jack Straw, Lord Chancellor and Minister of Justice in the United Kingdom Government (and Foreign Secretary at the time of the Libya-UK prisoner transfer negotiations) has a letter published today in The Herald denying that any deal has been done with Libya regarding the repatriation of Abdelbaset Megrahi. A prisoner transfer agreement has been concluded with Libya, from which Megrahi is not specifically excluded, but any decision on whether he will benefit under it rests with the Scottish Government. See
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.2042935.0.No_deal_done_with_Libya_over_alMegrahi.php
and, for an article by Lucy Adams,
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2042957.0.Scottish_ministers_will_have_final_say_over_fate_of_Lockerbie_bomber.php
The BBC's coverage of the story can be found here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7244033.stm
None of what Mr Straw says is in any way controversial. But it avoids the issue: what were the Libyans led to expect and believe when the UK Foreign Office was negotiating the agreement; and why was the Scottish Government (host to the only Libyan prisoner in Britain about whom Libya is in any way concerned) kept in the dark? These issues are dealt with in earlier posts on this blog. See
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/libyan-prisoner-transfer.html
and
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/02/prisoner-transfer-again.html.
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