Terminally ill Libyan bomber in '88 Lockerbie Pan Am bombing to be released

[GAP]

Care to elaborate? He was seen by British doctors in a British prison. No Intelligence Service in the world can fake an X-ray taken by someone else

Isn't it just amazing what politics can do?

 

[tomahawk6]

Proof that the deal to release al Magrahi was all about oil - $15b to be exact. Magrahi wasnt even examined by an oncologist. The fix was in.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6814974.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

DURING the past year a small ship bristling with computers and seismic equipment has been crisscrossing the Gulf of Sidra, in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. Its mission: to help to find BP’s next offshore oilfields.

The company’s search for oil off Libya and in a 20,000-mile area in the west of the country potentially offers as much as £15 billion in new revenue. But less than two years ago it was feared that the deal could founder — and the reason was wrangling over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the jailed Lockerbie bomber.

BP was finally given the go-ahead six weeks after a volte-face by the British government to include Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya under which prisoners could serve out sentences in their home countries. Jack Straw, the justice secretary, revealed this decision in a letter to his Scottish counterpart. He cited “wider negotiations” and the “overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom”.

Sources in the UK and Tripoli said last week that those wider interests included BP’s hoped-for share of Libya’s untapped oil and gas reserves. The decision to include Megrahi in the prisoner transfer arrangement was seen by Libyan officials as paving the way for his release — and BP’s much-coveted deal was finally ratified.

BP last week denied the agreement was influenced by talks over prisoner transfers and specifically Megrahi. But other sources insist the two were clearly linked. Saad Djebbar, an international lawyer who advises the Libyan government and who visited Megrahi in jail in Scotland, said: “No one was in any doubt that if alMegrahi died in a Scottish prison it would have serious repercussions for many years which would be to the disadvantage of British industry.”

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, said last weekend: “The idea that the British government and the Libyan government would sit down and somehow barter over the freedom or the life of this Libyan prisoner and make it form part of some business deal ... it’s not only wrong, it’s completely implausible and actually quite offensive.”

The detailed correspondence seen by The Sunday Times confirms that the Lockerbie bomber’s fate was regarded by the UK government as pivotal to relations with Libya. It also shows how anxious the government was to curry favour with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi by being seen to open the way for Megrahi’s release.

The government now faces new questions over its exact role in trade talks and whether or not it favoured Megrahi. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, is calling for full disclosure of whether commercial contracts for oil were discussed as part of the negotiations for the Libya-UK prisoner transfer treaty.

In the 1980s — after the shooting of a British policewoman outside the Libyan embassy in London and the Lockerbie bombing which claimed 270 lives — Libya was an international outcast. But the past decade has seen a remarkable transformation, with the country dismantling its weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Blair helped with Gadaffi’s diplomatic rehabilitation, taking high-profile trips to Libya in 2004 and 2007. At the second meeting, when an unkempt and unshaven Gadaffi met Blair in a tent in the desert, it was announced that the two countries had agreed a memorandum of understanding covering civil and criminal legal co-operation, extradition and prison transfer.

Questions were immediately asked whether the arrangement would cover Megrahi, who was convicted in 2001 for taking part in the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment. Downing Street insisted the agreement would not lead to his release. “The memorandum of understanding agreed with the Libyan government does not cover this case,” said a spokesman at the time.

During Blair’s 2007 visit, BP signed its exploration deal with Libya’s National Oil Corporation. “This is a welcome return to the country and represents a significant opportunity for both BP and Libya to deliver our long-term growth aspirations,” said Tony Hayward, BP group chief executive, who signed the contract with Blair looking on.

The prisoner transfer agreement — and specifically the fate of Megrahi — were inextricably linked with the BP deal. Six months after Blair’s trip, and with Gordon Brown in No 10, the Libyans were frustrated that the prisoner transfer agreement had not even been drafted. The BP contract was also waiting to be ratified.

The key reason for the delay in the prisoner transfer agreement was Megrahi. Lord Falconer, who was Blair’s justice secretary, had told the Scottish government in a letter on June 22, 2007 that “any prisoner transfer agreement with Libya could not cover al-Megrahi”.

Straw, appointed justice secretary by Brown, set out his favoured option for excluding Megrahi in another letter the following month.

The Libyans were furious and the BP deal — in which £545m would be spent on exploration alone — was an ace in their hand.

“Nobody doubted that Libya wanted BP and BP was confident its commitment would go through,” said Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Libya and a director of the Libyan British Business Council. “But the timing of the final authority to spend real money on the ground was dependent on politics.”

The Libyans insisted that Megrahi must be covered by the prisoner transfer agreement. The government relented and Straw was forced into a U-turn. “I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion,” he wrote in a letter to Kenny MacAskill, his Scottish counterpart.

“The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed in this instance the [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”

Six weeks later BP announced its deal had been ratified.

Negotiations over the release of Megrahi had been spearheaded by Gadaffi’s son, Saif. He was also courting influential figures and financiers in Russia, America and the UK to improve his country’s image and forge new business links.

Brown Lloyd James, a public relations firm with offices in London and New York, has opened an office in Tripoli. It is reported to have placed articles by Colonel Gadaffi in American newspapers. The firm would not comment last week.

One of the firm’s founders is Peter Brown, an old friend of Mandelson. The business secretary, who has stayed with Brown on the Caribbean island of St Barts, said this weekend that he could not recollect discussing Libya with anyone from Brown Lloyd James.

It is perhaps inevitable that the high-powered and wealthy figures who mix with Saif Gadaffi also pass through Mandelson’s orbit. Mutual associates include Lord Rothschild, his son Nat, and the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, whose company Rusal has interests in Libya.

To Deripaska and Nat Rothschild, Saif Gadaffi is an invaluable business contact. They were invited to his 37th birthday party in Montenegro, where they are both investors in a new marina development.

There is some bafflement in Tripoli that British ministers are not talking up the possible business opportunities of an even more cordial relationship.

Djebbar said: “Britain can continue with this political absurdity [of recriminations] or get their businesses to take advantage of the goodwill towards them.”

Megrahi said public focus should be on identifying the perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing. In an interview published yesterday, Megrahi, who insists he is innocent, said: “We all want to know the truth. I support the issue of a public inquiry. ”

 

[PMedMoe]

Not shocked at all. 

 

[1feral1]

Looks like the Pommy government sold their own people out.

Shame on them all.

Perhaps some justice will come in the next election, but the damage has been done, and there has been NO justice for the souls murdered by this coward and his peers.

OWDU

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Scotsman, is yet more:

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/latestnews/MacAskill-defied-rules-on-release.5601215.jp

MacAskill defied rules on release
Lockerbie bomber’s length of sentence ignored

Published Date: 30 August 2009

By Eddie Barnes Political Editor

KENNY MacAskill was facing mounting pressure over his decision to release the Lockerbie bomber last night amid further claims he acted against official guidelines.

The justice secretary allowed Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi to walk free despite guidance stating that the bomber's 27-year minimum sentence should have been taken into account. MacAskill will now appear before the Scottish Parliament this week where he could face a joint vote from opposition parties condemning his decision.

Documents obtained from the Scottish Prison Service show that before granting compassionate release, the authorities should consider "the length of the sentence outstanding, the effect on the overall sentence if early release is granted and any comments that the trial judge made on sentencing which may have a bearing on the question of early release".

In 2001, describing his crime as "horrendous", the High Court judge Lord Sutherland first ruled that Megrahi serve 20 years. Three years later, he increased that to 27 years. Even then, the Crown launched an appeal, claiming that this tougher sentence was too lenient.

When he was released ten days ago, Megrahi had served only eight years.

With polls showing that a majority of the Scottish public opposed the release, it also emerged last night that:

• The UK Government decided to make Megrahi eligible for return to Libya under a separate prison transfer agreement because negotiations with the oil-rich country were reaching a "critical stage". Within weeks of bowing to pressure to Libya and making Megrahi part of the deal, the north African country ratified a deal with BP for exploration rights in the country.

• US Government insiders say they "would have done almost anything" to persuade MacAskill to keep Megrahi in Scottish jurisdiction – including the option of him being freed to live with his family in Scotland.

• Megrahi wants to see a public inquiry into his case, and is promising to write an autobiography setting out his version of events.

The Scottish Parliament will hold a full debate on the decision on Wednesday, when MacAskill is likely to argue that freeing Megrahi was the only real alternative, and he had received the backing of the prison service, the parole board and government officials.

The SNP Government will also point out that the same SPS guidance instructed MacAskill to consider whether keeping Megrahi in jail would have shortened his life span, as doctors feared.

But the new revelation about the sentencing guidelines comes after doubts were raised last week about whether the medical evidence required to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds was conclusive.

The same SPS guidance stipulates that a life expectancy of around three months is "an appropriate time" to consider release. Dr Andrew Fraser, the Prison Service's director of health told MacAskill on 10 August that three months was a "reasonable estimate" in Megrahi's case. However, it also emerged that four consultants who had been involved in his case had been "not willing" to offer a prognosis.

Richard Baker, Labour's justice spokesman, said: "It looks increasingly as if Mr MacAskill made up his mind to release Megrahi and then tried to marshal evidence and paperwork to justify it."

Scotland on Sunday also understands that, in the days before Megrahi's release, the US government "tried everything" to persuade MacAskill to keep the bomber in Scotland.

MacAskill told the Scottish Parliament last week that he had ruled out the option, because of the "severe" problems it would have caused the police.

However, UK Ministers were also under fire last night as it emerged they had gone back on a pledge made to the SNP Government to keep Megrahi out of a prison transfer agreement with Libya. They switched their position as Libya used its deal with BP as a bargaining chip to insist the Lockerbie bomber was included in the agreement.

In December 2007, Straw wrote to the SNP: "The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the (prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual."

Within six weeks of the government climbdown, Libya had ratified the BP deal. UK officials last night said the matter was "academic" because MacAskill last week turned down the Libyan request for Megrahi to return under the agreement, choosing instead to release him on compassionate grounds.

This appears to confirm the “Megrahi for oil” side of the story but it and other reports fail to confirm the “not seen by a specialist” charge.

I suppose the only thing to do, now, is count down the days until:

• Ali al-Megrahi dies – maybe with some “help” from the Libyans; and/or

• Profits actually accrue to British shareholders from the BP deal.

I’m not sure “sold out” is the right word. I think this sort of rather underhanded dealing is about par for the course by most Western governments – ours and the US included – when dealing with countries like Libya, specifically, or, more broadly, three quarters of the countries on earth.

 

[theoldyoungguy]

I'm not sure if many of you follow Eric Margolis' column's however I find his most recent very interesting.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/08/30/10673121-sun.html

 

[tomahawk6]

I dont agree with his conclusion that Iran was responsible for the destruction of the Pan Am flight. We got the mastermind but he should have stood trial in the US and would be in a US prison today. I dont know if this was a deliberate attempt to get back at Obama for his treatment of the UK but the result is the same. Obama looks weak. Britain gains an advantage in the oil game. The real losers are the families of the dead.

 

[1feral1]

The real losers are the families of the dead.

Exactly, their pain will continue for the rest of their lives.

OWDU

 

[a_majoor]

This is part of a larger pattern across the West, with many negative consequences:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/09/01/suicide_of_the_west_98112.html

CIA Interrogators Did Not Cross the Line
By Thomas Sowell

Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi-- the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people-- is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.

In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.

The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."

He wrote this long before Barack Obama became President of the United States. But this administration epitomizes the "concessions and smiles" approach to countries that are our implacable enemies.

Western Europe has gone down that path before us but we now seem to be trying to catch up.

Still, the release of a mass-murdering terrorist, who went home to a hero's welcome in Libya, shows that President Obama is not the only one who wants to move away from the idea of a "war on terror"-- as if that will stop the terrorists' war on us.

The ostensible reason for releasing al-Megrahi was compassion for a man terminally ill. It is ironic that this was said in Scotland, for exactly 250 years ago another Scotsman-- Adam Smith-- said, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."

That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America as well, where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded or blown up by the terrorists themselves.

Tragically, those with this strange inversion of values include the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. Although President Obama has said that he does not want to revisit the past, this is only the latest example of how his administration's actions are the direct opposite of his lofty words.

It is not just a question of looking backward. The decision to second-guess CIA agents who extracted information to save American lives is even worse when you look forward.

Years from now, long after Barack Obama is gone, CIA agents dealing with hardened terrorists will have to worry about whether what they do to get information out of them to save American lives will make these agents themselves liable to prosecution that can destroy their careers and ruin their lives.

This is not simply an injustice to those who have tried to keep this country safe, it is a danger recklessly imposed on future Americans whose safety cannot always be guaranteed by sweet and gentle measures against hardened murderers.

Those who are pushing for legal action against CIA agents may talk about "upholding the law" but they are doing no such thing. Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Geneva Convention gives rights to terrorists who operate outside the law.

There was a time when everybody understood this. German soldiers who put on American military uniforms, in order to infiltrate American lines during the Battle of the Bulge were simply lined up against a wall and shot-- and nobody wrung their hands over it. Nor did the U.S. Army try to conceal what they had done. The executions were filmed and the film has been shown on the History Channel.

So many "rights" have been conjured up out of thin air that many people seem unaware that rights and obligations derive from explicit laws, not from politically correct pieties. If you don't meet the terms of the Geneva Convention, then the Geneva Convention doesn't protect you. If you are not an American citizen, then the rights guaranteed to American citizens do not apply to you.

That should be especially obvious if you are part of an international network bent on killing Americans. But bending over backward to be nice to our enemies is one of the many self-indulgences of those who engage in moral preening.

But getting other people killed so that you can feel puffed up about yourself is profoundly immoral. So is betraying the country you took an oath to protect.

 

[mariomike]

"There was a time when everybody understood this. German soldiers who put on American military uniforms, in order to infiltrate American lines during the Battle of the Bulge were simply lined up against a wall and shot-- and nobody wrung their hands over it. Nor did the U.S. Army try to conceal what they had done"

They ( we ) didn't hesitate to bomb German and Japanese city centres either. Any hand wringing occurred after VE and VJ Days.
I think the comparison is relevant because, in this case and again on 9/11, nations had their own aircraft infiltrated to be used against them as bombers by an enemy.

 

[mariomike]

Sun July 4, 2010
"Expert: Lockerbie bomber could live much longer LONDON - A cancer expert whose medical assessment of the Lockerbie bomber helped lead to his early release has been quoted as saying the Libyan could live for another 10 years.":
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100704/world/eu_britain_lockerbie

 

[Larkvall]

Well it is now over a year after his release.....

 

[57Chevy]

I realize that this is an old thread but sometimes it takes years for the truth to finally surface on certain matters.
______________________
Gadhafi ordered Lockerbie bombing, says ex-Libya minister

STOCKHOLM — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, former justice minister Mustapha Abdeljalil told Swedish daily Expressen, the paper reported on its website Wednesday.

"I have proof that Gadhafi gave the order on Lockerbie," said the minister, who stepped down Monday to protest the ongoing violence in Libya.

Libyan national Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi was in 2001 convicted of the bombing of Pan AM Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988 that killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

But Scottish authorities, who have power over their own judicial affairs, released Megrahi, 58, on compassionate grounds in August 2009 after doctors said he was suffering from terminal cancer and had three months to live.

His release and subsequent hero's return to Tripoli drew a furious response from many, and outrage in the U.S. has been stoked by the fact that he remains alive almost a year and a half after his release.

According to Abdeljalil, Gadhafi "ordered Megrahi to do it (the bombing)," and had worked hard to secure his release to ensure that his role in the plot remained secret.

"To hide it, he did everything in his power to get Megrahi back from Scotland," the former minister said.

                              (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)

 

[The Bread Guy]

An update:  CNN has apparently found him, and is sharing video looking like he may be on his last legs.....

Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is comatose, near death and likely to take secrets of the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 to his grave.

CNN found al-Megrahi under the care of his family in his palatial Tripoli villa Sunday, surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip. The cancer-stricken former Libyan intelligence officer may be the last man alive who knows precisely who in the Libya government authorized the bombing, which killed 270 people.

"We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice," his son, Khaled al-Megrahi, told CNN ....