UK Government "game plan" on Megrahi release

[What follows is excerpted from a report that appeared on The Telegraph website on this date in 2011:]

The British ambassador to the US told America it should not intervene to stop the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison, according to leaked diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph.

Nigel Sheinwald told James Steinberg, the US Deputy Secretary of State, that he was "concerned" that the demands of victims' families were unduly influencing US policy.

His comments came during critical negotiations over whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, should be switched to a Libyan jail to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Sir Nigel was Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser between 2003 and 2007 and played a key role, alongside the Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, in bringing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi back into the international fold. He was at Mr Blair's side for the first meeting with Colonel Gaddafi in 2007 that resulted in a substantial BP oil contract. [RB: Sheinwald was at Blair's side throughout the negotiations that resulted in the "deal in the desert".]

The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph, is dated February 2009. It states: "Sheinwald asked that the US continue to consult with the UK in the possible transfer of ailing Pan Am bomber Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi from the UK to Libya. Specifically, he said HMG supported the discussions this week between UK and US officials to define a common strategy.

"Sheinwald cited concern that the Pan Am victims' families were asking for direct US intervention to stop the transfer. He asked that the United States delay "for a few days" any intervention with the Scottish authorities, who will ultimately decide on the transfer." [RB: At this stage, only repatriation under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement was in issue. No application for compassionate release was made by Megrahi until several months later.]

He was firmly rebuffed by Deputy Secretary Steinberg. The cable states: "The Deputy said the UK government needed to understand the sensitivities in this case, and noted he was acutely aware of the concerns of Lockerbie victim's groups from his previous time in government."

Mr Megrahi was controversially released on compassionate grounds seven months later after being diagnosed with cancer.

Last night the victim's families were furious that British diplomats actively lobbied to stop the US intervening in Megrahi's release.

Kathleen Flynn, whose son John Patrick died in the bombing, said: "It is disgraceful that the British were complicit in his release. This man was a killer who took 270 innocent lives but was allowed go free and live the life of riley in Tripoli."

Sir Nigel Sheinwald also reportedly gave Gaddafi's son, Saif, help with his PhD thesis. The doctorate awarded him by the London School of Economics was already thought suspect because he followed it with a £1.5 million donation. Mr Sheinwald denied the allegation, saying he met Saif Gaddafi while he was writing his thesis but had not helped him. (...)

Senior Labour Cabinet ministers always denied being involved in any backstairs deals over the release in August 2009, yet a secret Foreign Office memo referred to a "game plan" to facilitate Megrahi's move to Libya.

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, said in an analysis of the papers: "Once Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2008, (government) policy was based upon an assessment that UK interests would be damaged if Megrahi were to die in a UK jail."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We do not comment on leaked documents."

[The following is taken from an item posted on this blog on 15 July 2010:]

The government believes that the decision by Scotland to free the Lockerbie bomber was a mistake, London's envoy to the United States said Thursday.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which left 270 people dead.

"The new British government is clear that Megrahi's release was a mistake," ambassador Nigel Sheinwald said, stressing that under the country's laws power over justice issues have been devolved to Scotland.

[I commented as follows:]

The ambassador to Washington DC, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, was Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the prime minister, Tony Blair, from 2003 to 2007. It is a matter for mild cynical amusement that Sheinwald was present at, and intimately involved in, the negotiation of the deal in the desert which was intended to pave the way for Abdelbaset Megrahi's early repatriation under a prisoner transfer agreement. The UK negotiators did not realise that the power to allow transfer would rest, not with the UK but with the Scottish, Government. Or if the negotiators did realise this, they signally failed to inform their Libyan counterparts, to the disgust of the latter when they discovered [RB: from me] what the true position was.

Victims' families “unduly influencing US policy”

What follows is an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2011:

Libya: Britain told US not to intervene in Lockerbie bomber release

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Daily Telegraph. It reads in part:]

The British ambassador to the US told America it should not intervene to stop the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison, according to leaked diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph.

Nigel Sheinwald told James Steinberg, the US Deputy Secretary of State, that he was "concerned" that the demands of victims' families were unduly influencing US policy.

His comments came during critical negotiations over whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, should be switched to a Libyan jail to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Sir Nigel was Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser between 2003 and 2007 and played a key role, alongside the Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, in bringing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi back into the international fold. He was at Mr Blair's side for the first meeting with Colonel Gaddafi in 2007 that resulted in a substantial BP oil contract. [RB: Sheinwald was at Blair's side throughout the negotiations that resulted in the "deal in the desert".]

The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph, is dated February 2009. It states: "Sheinwald asked that the US continue to consult with the UK in the possible transfer of ailing Pan Am bomber Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi from the UK to Libya. Specifically, he said HMG supported the discussions this week between UK and US officials to define a common strategy.

"Sheinwald cited concern that the Pan Am victims' families were asking for direct US intervention to stop the transfer. He asked that the United States delay "for a few days" any intervention with the Scottish authorities, who will ultimately decide on the transfer." [RB: At this stage, only repatriation under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement was in issue. No application for compassionate release was made by Megrahi until several months later.]

He was firmly rebuffed by Deputy Secretary Steinberg. The cable states: "The Deputy said the UK government needed to understand the sensitivities in this case, and noted he was acutely aware of the concerns of Lockerbie victim's groups from his previous time in government."

Mr Megrahi was controversially released on compassionate grounds seven months later after being diagnosed with cancer.

Last night the victim's families were furious that British diplomats actively lobbied to stop the US intervening in Megrahi's release.

Kathleen Flynn, whose son John Patrick died in the bombing, said: "It is disgraceful that the British were complicit in his release. This man was a killer who took 270 innocent lives but was allowed go free and live the life of riley in Tripoli."

Sir Nigel Sheinwald also reportedly gave Gaddafi's son, Saif, help with his PhD thesis. The doctorate awarded him by the London School of Economics was already thought suspect because he followed it with a £1.5 million donation. Mr Sheinwald denied the allegation, saying he met Saif Gaddafi while he was writing his thesis but had not helped him. (...)

Senior Labour Cabinet ministers always denied being involved in any backstairs deals over the release in August 2009, yet a secret Foreign Office memo referred to a "game plan" to facilitate Megrahi's move to Libya.

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, said in an analysis of the papers: "Once Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2008, (government) policy was based upon an assessment that UK interests would be damaged if Megrahi were to die in a UK jail."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We do not comment on leaked documents."

Libya: Britain told US not to intervene in Lockerbie bomber release

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Daily Telegraph. It reads in part:]

The British ambassador to the US told America it should not intervene to stop the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison, according to leaked diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph.

Nigel Sheinwald told James Steinberg, the US Deputy Secretary of State, that he was "concerned" that the demands of victims' families were unduly influencing US policy.

His comments came during critical negotiations over whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, should be switched to a Libyan jail to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Sir Nigel was Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser between 2003 and 2007 and played a key role, alongside the Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, in bringing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi back into the international fold. He was at Mr Blair's side for the first meeting with Colonel Gaddafi in 2007 that resulted in a substantial BP oil contract. [RB: Sheinwald was at Blair's side throughout the negotiations that resulted in the "deal in the desert".]

The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to the Daily Telegraph, is dated February 2009. It states: "Sheinwald asked that the US continue to consult with the UK in the possible transfer of ailing Pan Am bomber Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi from the UK to Libya. Specifically, he said HMG supported the discussions this week between UK and US officials to define a common strategy.

"Sheinwald cited concern that the Pan Am victims' families were asking for direct US intervention to stop the transfer. He asked that the United States delay "for a few days" any intervention with the Scottish authorities, who will ultimately decide on the transfer." [RB: At this stage, only repatriation under the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement was in issue. No application for compassionate release was made by Megrahi until several months later.]

He was firmly rebuffed by Deputy Secretary Steinberg. The cable states: "The Deputy said the UK government needed to understand the sensitivities in this case, and noted he was acutely aware of the concerns of Lockerbie victim's groups from his previous time in government."

Mr Megrahi was controversially released on compassionate grounds seven months later after being diagnosed with cancer.

Last night the victim's families were furious that British diplomats actively lobbied to stop the US intervening in Megrahi's release.

Kathleen Flynn, whose son John Patrick died in the bombing, said: "It is disgraceful that the British were complicit in his release. This man was a killer who took 270 innocent lives but was allowed go free and live the life of riley in Tripoli."

Sir Nigel Sheinwald also reportedly gave Gaddafi's son, Saif, help with his PhD thesis. The doctorate awarded him by the London School of Economics was already thought suspect because he followed it with a £1.5 million donation. Mr Sheinwald denied the allegation, saying he met Saif Gaddafi while he was writing his thesis but had not helped him. (...)

Senior Labour Cabinet ministers always denied being involved in any backstairs deals over the release in August 2009, yet a secret Foreign Office memo referred to a "game plan" to facilitate Megrahi's move to Libya.

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, said in an analysis of the papers: "Once Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2008, (government) policy was based upon an assessment that UK interests would be damaged if Megrahi were to die in a UK jail."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We do not comment on leaked documents."

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.]

Sheinwald: mistake to free Lockerbie bomber

[What follows is an Agence France Presse news agency report:]

The government believes that the decision by Scotland to free the Lockerbie bomber was a mistake, London's envoy to the United States said Thursday.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which left 270 people dead.

"The new British government is clear that Megrahi's release was a mistake," ambassador Nigel Sheinwald said, stressing that under the country's laws power over justice issues have been devolved to Scotland.

Megrahi was released from jail in Scottish prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was said to be suffering from terminal cancer and had only three months to live. Reports have now emerged that he could live at least another 10 years.

On Tuesday, four US senators also called for an inquiry into allegations that energy giant BP lobbied the British government to free Megrahi in order to protect a lucrative oil deal with Libya.

[The ambassador to Washington DC, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, was Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the prime minister, Tony Blair, from 2003 to 2007. It is a matter for mild cynical amusement that Sheinwald was present at, and intimately involved in, the negotiation of the deal in the desert which was intended to pave the way for Abdelbaset Megrahi's early repatriation under a prisoner transfer agreement. The UK negotiators did not realise that the power to allow transfer would rest, not with the UK but with the Scottish, Government. Or if the negotiators did realise this, they signally failed to inform their Libyan counterparts, to the disgust of the latter when they discovered what the true position was.

There is a related long report on the Channel 4 News website and another one on The Guardian website. This also contains a clarification of Professor Karol Sikora's views on Megrahi's survival prospects:]

New York Democrat senators Frank Lautenberg, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer and New Jersey Democrat Senator Robert Menendez called for an inquiry, after reports that a cancer expert, who backed the three-month prognosis, now believed Megrahi could live for 10 or 20 years.

But yesterday, Professor Karol Sikora, medical director of CancerPartners UK, said his words were taken out of context, and that the chances of Megrahi surviving for a decade were "less than 1%".

He said: "There was a greater than 50% chance, in my opinion, that he would die within the first three months then gradually as you go along the chances get less and less.

"So the chances of living 10 years is less than 1%, something like that."

"Sent to lie abroad for the good of his country"

[The following is excerpted from an item posted on this blog on this date in 2010:]

Sheinwald: mistake to free Lockerbie bomber

[What follows is an Agence France Presse news agency report:]

The government believes that the decision by Scotland to free the Lockerbie bomber was a mistake, London's envoy to the United States said Thursday.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which left 270 people dead.

"The new British government is clear that Megrahi's release was a mistake," ambassador Nigel Sheinwald said, stressing that under the country's laws power over justice issues have been devolved to Scotland.

Megrahi was released from jail in Scottish prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was said to be suffering from terminal cancer and had only three months to live. Reports have now emerged that he could live at least another 10 years.

On Tuesday, four US senators also called for an inquiry into allegations that energy giant BP lobbied the British government to free Megrahi in order to protect a lucrative oil deal with Libya.

[The ambassador to Washington DC, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, was Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the prime minister, Tony Blair, from 2003 to 2007. It is a matter for mild cynical amusement that Sheinwald was present at, and intimately involved in, the negotiation of the deal in the desert which was intended to pave the way for Abdelbaset Megrahi's early repatriation under a prisoner transfer agreement. The UK negotiators did not realise that the power to allow transfer would rest, not with the UK but with the Scottish, Government. Or if the negotiators did realise this, they signally failed to inform their Libyan counterparts, to the disgust of the latter when they discovered [RB: from me] what the true position was.]

Senate panel sets hearing on BP-Lockerbie case

[This is the headline over a report on the website of the Reuters news agency. It reads in part:]

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has scheduled a July 29 hearing into last year's release of a Libyan convicted for the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and related actions by BP.

The committee said on Thursday it will ask officials of BP plc to testify after the UK-based oil giant acknowledged that it had lobbied the British government in 2007 to agree to transfer Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to Tripoli. The company said it was concerned that his continued imprisonment in Scotland could negatively affect an offshore oil drilling deal with Libya.

"BP told the UK government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya," BP said in a statement.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, who had opposed Megrahi's release, said "details that have emerged in recent days in the press have raised new concerns."

Britain's ambassador to Washington sent a letter to Kerry on Thursday "to explain the facts" surrounding the circumstances of Megrahi's release.

"Under Scottish law, Megrahi was entitled to be considered for release on compassionate grounds. Whilst we disagreed with the decision to release him, we have to respect the independence of the process," Sir Nigel Sheinwald said in the letter.

"I am troubled by the claims made in the press that Megrahi was released because of an oil deal involving BP, and that the medical evidence supporting his release was paid for by the Libyan government. Both of these allegations are untrue," Sheinwald added.

Sheinwald said he hoped his letter would help to set the record straight and correct inaccuracies that he said were harmful to the United Kingdom. (...)

The Senate panel said it will ask "government experts" to testify at the hearing, but did not release details on witnesses it plans to invite.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would look into a request by several senators that her agency investigate.

Deal done to get Megrahi to drop appeal

[What follows is the text of an article that appeared on the Channel 4 News website on this date in 2010:]

How does an ex-spy link BP, Libya and Lockerbie bomber? Who Knows Who investigates the key players at the heart of a growing transatlantic rift - from deals in the desert to the boardroom, via MI6.

The only man convicted in connection with the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing over Scotland, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds. He is terminally ill with prostate cancer.

He returned home, personally escorted by Saif Gaddafi, son of Libya's leader Colonel Gaddafi, to a hero's welcome in August 2009.

The celebrations sparked fury around the world and were condemned by President Obama and then prime minister Gordon Brown. Nearly a year on, al-Megrahi is still alive in Libya and his name is back in global headlines.

Thousands of miles away in the US, a group of senators has called for an inquiry into an admission by British energy giant BP that it lobbied UK ministers to get them to speed up the signing of a prisoner transfer agreement, in order to rescue an oil deal with Libya. BP insists it never lobbied about Mr al-Megrahi personally.

The witnesses the US politicians call could include Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, former justice secretary Jack Straw, Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive, and Tony Blair.

So who sped up the process which may have led to al-Megrahi's release? What did Tony Blair agree at the "deal in the desert"? And what is the BP connection?

Shortly after al-Megrahi's return home, Britain's former "man in Tripoli" Sir Oliver Miles told Channel 4 News he believed a deal had been done between the UK and Libya, to get al-Megrahi to drop an appeal against his conviction.

The former UK ambassador to Libya said: "I think Tony Blair originally thought that he could deal with it quite simply by [sending] al-Megrahi back to Libya under the prisoner transfer agreement. It turned out it wasn't as simple as that."

One man who knows more than most about what took place is Sir Nigel Sheinwald - Britain's ambassador to the US since 2007. Once Blair's right-hand man, he has been at David Cameron's side throughout the new prime minister's first official US trip.

Sir Nigel previously served as an adviser on foreign policy to Blair. Libyan ministers and diplomats are said to refer to the "Nigel and Tony" double act.

In 2003, with US approval, he chaired the secret meetings in London with the Libyans that led to an easing of international relations with Colonel Gaddafi.

Intriguingly, Mr Cameron's coalition partner also has a connection to Gaddafi. Before entering parliament, Deputy PM Nick Clegg worked for a lobby firm called GJW. One of its clients was Libya and a key project is said to have been "improving the reputation" of its controversial leader.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald was at the heart of this rehabilitation of Libya in the eyes of the West. He was sitting next to Tony Blair at the now infamous meeting in Gaddafi's tent in 2004.

Sir Nigel was again at Blair's side in 2007 when a prisoner transfer agreement was struck. On the same day Blair looked on as BP boss Tony Hayward signed a provisional agreement over $900m gas and oil exploration rights in Libya. Both deals later stalled and al-Megrahi's ill-health was the official reason for his release.

Another key player, and a name which should interest the US senators, is Sir Mark Allen. He was in charge of the Middle East and Africa department at MI6 until he left in 2004 to become an adviser to BP.

It is known Sir Mark lobbied then justice secretary Jack Straw to speed up an agreement over prisoner transfers to avoid jeopardising a major trade deal with Libya.

He made two phone calls to Mr Straw - who later let slip Sir Mark's involvement to a select committee. He said: "I knew Sir Mark from my time at the Foreign Office - he has an extensive knowledge of Libya and the Middle East and I thought he was worth listening to."

Sir Mark, an Oxford graduate and a fan of falconry, has been credited with helping to persuade the Libyans to abandon development of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. He is said to have "charmed" Gaddafi out of his international isolation.

But has BP's influence been overplayed? Sir Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador, believes so. He says that the US senators, angry at the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, are trying to "kick BP while it's down".

He said that Libya had signed deals not just with BP, but also with Shell and ExxonMobil - the three biggest energy firms in the world.

Speaking to Channel 4 News he added: "Libya knows the only way it can achieve a boost in oil production is by bringing in the world's biggest oil companies.

"You don't have to look for any dirty business to explain why they're doing business with BP."

Sens to State Dept: Push UK on Lockerbie bomber

[This is the headline over an Associated Press news report just published on the CBS3 website. It reads in part:]

Their own request denied, four US senators are pressuring the State Department to push Britain to investigate the circumstances of last year's release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie airliner bombing. (...)

Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey requested the investigation in a July 7 letter to the UK's ambassador to the US.

"The decision by the Scottish government to reject our request to reinvestigate the decision to release this terrorist raises more suspicions as to whether there was a rotten deal between the United Kingdom and the Libya government," Schumer said Monday. "So we're calling on the State Department to put a full-court press on the United Kingdom to return this terrorist to prison."

In his response to the senators, British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald said due process was followed.

"The Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament conducted an inquiry into Mr Megrahi's release earlier this year and concluded that the Scottish Executive's consideration of the case took place in accordance with normal good practice," Sheinwald said.

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley could not say if Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had received the letter from the senators seeking the investigation but said the US continues to watch the situation with Megrahi closely.

"We haven't changed our view. We think that the decision to release Mr. Megrahi last summer was a mistake," he told reporters in Washington.

"There was an expectation from last August that Mr. Megrahi had only a few months to live. We've been on the Megrahi watch since that time," Crowley said. "Every day that he lives as a free man, we think is an affront to the families of and victims of Pan Am 103."

Lockerbie Fears

Relatives of the victims of an airliner Libyan terrorists blew up over Scotland 20 years ago are appealing to British Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald for information on any secret talks to release the convicted mastermind of the attack to Libya.

"I have a great fear that your government may revisit promises made concerning the transfer of the convicted bomber back to Libya," Francis J. Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103, said in a letter to Mr. Sheinwald on Friday.

Mr. Duggan said he is concerned by newspaper reports that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi might be included in a treaty between Britain and Libya to transfer other Libyan prisoners held in British jails to Libya. The treaty is expected to be considered by the British Parliament in April.

Mr. Duggan, a Washington lawyer, said he has been unable to "determine, from a reading of the treaty, whether al-Megrahi was specifically considered during the negotiations leading up to the agreement."

"There were many British citizens killed on Dec. 21, 1988, and relatives of those passengers on Pan Am 103 were assured that the proposed treaty did not cover the Lockerbie bomber," Mr. Duggan said, adding that American relatives of the victims are also petitioning the U.S. government to block any transfer of Megrahi to Libya.

[From the Embassy Row column of today's edition of The Washington Times. The full article can be read here.]

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.

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.]

Lockerbie: now pressure switches to America

[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Sunday Herald. It reads in part:]

Pressure is growing on the US government to release secret documents which detail its position on the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

As the trans-Atlantic row deepens over why Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was freed from a Scottish jail last summer, the US government is being urged to drop its ban on the publication of letters it sent to both the Scottish Government and Whitehall on the issue.

The US government refused Holyrood permission to make the papers public in a strongly worded letter last September, a month after Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, was allowed to return to Libya following his compassionate release.

But the move to make the documents public took a step forward as the Senate committee on foreign affairs prepares for Thursday’s inquiry into the prisoner’s release, with chairman Senator Robert Menendez requesting that the Scottish Government provide information on Megrahi’s release in five key areas.

They include “any documents including communications to or from Scottish Government officials, relating to the US government’s position on Al Megrahi’s release or transfer to Libyan custody.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said last night: “We have received another letter from Senator Menendez, who will chair next week’s hearing, and who has now asked for us to provide five categories of documents relating to the case. We are more than happy to do so, and indeed have already published all we hold on this issue, with the exception of some documents where permission for publication has so far been declined.

“These unpublished documents include correspondence between the Scottish Government and the US Government, whose release Senator Menendez has now requested. We would urge the Senator and his colleagues to work with their own Government so that the remaining information we hold can be published in the interests of maximum transparency.”

The Scottish Government also denied reports that Alex Salmond received a letter from committee member Senator Frank Lautenberg, who is said to have “pleaded” with the First Minister to send a representative to the hearing to add “credibility” to proceedings.

[Another article in the same newspaper by James Cusick contains the following:]

Of all the missing pieces in the jigsaw of information on the Lockerbie bombing and its aftermath one of the most confusing is Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s decision to drop his appeal against his conviction for the greatest terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated over Scottish soil. (...)

The Scottish Government had repeatedly branded the 2007 Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK and Libya – brokered in Tripoli in May 2007 by the then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his foreign affairs adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald – as unconstitutional because it took no account of Scotland’s separate legal identity from the UK Government,

For the prisoner transfer agreement to go ahead Megrahi would have had to drop his appeal. But MacAskill rejected the PTA and opted instead to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, under the terms of which the appeal could have gone ahead as planned. Yet Megrahi opted to drop it. Why? (...)

MacAskill will have known the full facts that lay behind the SCCRC’s decision to grant the appeal. The commission produced an 800-page report of the decision taken at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001. It was a Scottish court sitting in an independent country, and heard by three high court judges. A further 14 pages offered evaluation of new evidence and new circumstances surrounding the case against Megrahi, and identified six key areas where a potential miscarriage of justice may have taken place. (...)

Perhaps the most damning fall-out from the imminent appeal process, however, is the potential shredding of the evidence used to convict Megrahi and the unanswered questions about why they were admitted to court in the first place. Other uncomfortable questions centre on why wider investigations into the background of key witnesses did not take place on any scale that would have routinely been tested in a different legal arena.

Crucial to Megrahi’s conviction was the prosecution’s ability to place him in Malta on December 7, 1988. That was the day the court identified as the date a purchase was made at Mary’s House, a shop run by Tony Gauci. Clothes bought in the Sliema shop on this specific date were said to have been in the Samsonite case containing the explosive device.

Gauci was the witness who identified Megrahi as buying the clothes from his shop, on December 7. (...) This is crucial because the Libyan’s passport states that he was in Malta at that time. But if the clothes purchase was made earlier then Megrahi couldn’t have been in Malta at the time. That is the new picture painted in the evidence reviewed by the SCCRC. Gauci’s identification of Megrahi in his shop is also questioned.

Documents also allege that at an early stage of the US-UK investigation Gauci asked for, and was given, $2m by the US Department of Justice for his contributions to the case.

Other new areas of evidence which cast doubt on the conviction included documents said to have come from the CIA which relate to the ‘Mebo’ timer that is said to have been the key device which detonated the bomb on the aircraft. Details of these documents were not given to Megrahi’s defence counsel.

The owner of the Mebo firm, Edwin Bollier, is also listed in review of the evidence as claiming that in 1991 the FBI offered him $4m to testify that the fragments of a timer found near the scene of the crash were part of a Mebo MST-13 timer which the company said had been supplied to Libya.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is supposed to be the outcome of any legal process seeking justice. The appeal of Megrahi, had it gone ahead, suggests that Scottish justice fell short in the way it dealt with Lockerbie.

[A third article in The Sunday Herald by Tom Gordon reads in part:]

To many observers, it was the day Kenny MacAskill crossed a line. Before BP’s oil spill made it the focus for conspiracy theories, it was also the moment some felt ministers pressured a dying man to spare the blushes of the Scots legal system.

Just before 9am on Wednesday, August 5 last year, the Justice Secretary entered Greenock Prison for a meeting with inmate 55725. (...)

On May 5, the Libyan government had applied for Megrahi’s release under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) initiated by Tony Blair.

The following month, on the advice of George Burgess, head of the government’s criminal law and licensing division, MacAskill agreed to meetings with key players in the Lockerbie case, including Megrahi.

On July 24, Megrahi made a separate application for release on compassionate grounds. (...)

MacAskill came with Robert Gordon, director of the Justice Department, and Linda Miller, from the Criminal Law and Licensing Division.

According to official notes of the meeting, MacAskill said he would be considering both applications for release “in parallel”.

After asserting his innocence, Megrahi gave a history of his case, from his surrender in 1999, to trial at Camp Zeist in 2001, up to the present day, his illness, separation from his family, and feeling of “desolation”.

MacAskill stressed he could only grant a PTA transfer if there were no court proceedings ongoing – in other words, if Megrahi dropped his appeals against conviction and sentence.

“Mr Megrahi confirmed he understood this point,” the note recorded.

However, according to one of those close to events, Megrahi wrongly took this to mean that dropping his appeals was also a pre-condition of compassionate release. It wasn’t.

“MacAskill said something stupid. He shouldn’t have mentioned the appeal at all. “[The two processes] were conflated. That’s ultimately what Megrahi took from it,” said the source.

A week later, Megrahi signalled he was dropping his appeals.

His QC, Maggie Scott, told the High Court her client thought this would “assist in the early determination of these applications”.

Note the “applications” plural. (...)

A senior legal source told the Sunday Herald Megrahi was definitely under the false impression that abandoning his appeals would help secure compassionate release.

However the Libyan may simply have calculated that with MacAskill considering the PTA and compassionate applications at the same time, ending his appeals would leave both options open rather than just one. [Note by RB: This is the correct interpretation. Mr Megrahi was very well aware that compassionate release did not require abandonment of the appeal. Equally, he knew that prisoner transfer did; and he, like his government, was still labouring under the lingering impression created by Blair and Sheinwald during the "deal in the desert" that his repatriation under the PTA was really a done deal. Release under the PTA was what was really expected, because that was what Nigel and Tony had led the Libyan government to believe.]

On September 2, by a majority vote, the Scottish Parliament declared MacAskill had “mishandled” the release decision, and that meeting Megrahi while considering his application for compassionate release was “wrong”, and an “inappropriate precedent”.

[An editorial in the same newspaper headlined "Don’t let America give us lessons in justice" contains the following:]

[E]ven if MacAskill’s decision was flawed – and that is surely a subjective opinion – there remains no evidence that BP played any role whatsoever in persuading the Justice Minister to release Megrahi. The Scottish Government has insisted it received no representations from the oil company, and that it had no contact with it. There is no evidence, or indeed any serious suggestion, that is not the case.

There is, however, plenty of evidence that the Westminster Government wanted Megrahi free and that it was lobbied by BP to pave the way for his return to Libya.

It was the Westminster Government – albeit not the present Government – that agreed the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya when Megrahi was the only significant Libyan in a British jail. It was a Westminster Government which specifically agreed not to exclude Megrahi from that agreement. And it was a Westminster Government that decided to agree a strategy of bringing Libya back in from the cold. BP has already admitted lobbying Westminster for a quick conclusion to the prisoner transfer agreement so that trade with Libya could resume. Indeed, a deal between the Libyan government and BP was signed almost immediately after the prisoner transfer agreement was approved. All this is in the public domain. It does not require an inquiry in America to establish these facts.

It was only when it became apparent that Westminister did not have the legal authority to release Megrahi that the matter landed on MacAskill’s desk. Westminster may have officially kept its wishes to itself while MacAskill was making his deliberations but there can be no doubt that it privately wished Megrahi freed. It had already agreed a deal to make that happen.

In the end, MacAskill went against the prisoner transfer agreement but instead decided on compassionate release. It is acceptable to question the wisdom of that decision. It is not acceptable to question MacAskill’s right to make it.

Yet if the events surrounding Megrahi’s death are known, there are many facts about his conviction, and in particular his appeal against that conviction, which remain shrouded in mystery.

By all means we should have an inquiry which would allow the serious doubts about the veracity of the evidence against Megrahi to be aired. But we do not need the inquiry currently being demanded and we do not need America to give us lessons in justice. Alex Salmond is right to have nothing to do with it.