US Senators call for inquiry into Lockerbie bomber release
A group of US senators has repeated calls for an inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber after meeting UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Claims have been made that BP lobbied for the release, but Mr Cameron said the Scottish government was responsible for freeing Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand said justice had not been served.
Mr Cameron has asked the UK’s top civil servant to review government papers but ruled out US demands for an inquiry.
Megrahi was freed by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on compassionate grounds, and allowed to go home to Libya.
He has prostate cancer, and at the time he was said to have as little as three months to live. Megrahi is still alive almost a year later.
Ms Gillibrand said it was clear a full investigation into the release was still needed.
“This is about how we fight terrorism. We cannot have a convicted terrorist be told that he had three months to live and released and sitting in the lap of luxury for up to 10 years,” she said.
“That is not justice served and when we are trying to be able to be effective in fighting terrorism worldwide as allies we cannot tolerate a convicted terrorist going free on the basis of evidence that may well have been fraudulent.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, also from New York, said there was “too much suspicion to brush this aside”.
“The only way to restore the integrity of what happened and to continue the integrity of the British government is to do a full and complete investigation,” he said.
‘Violent agreement’
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has defended the decision to release Megrahi.
Mr Salmond also offered to publish all correspondence between his ministers and the UK and US governments surrounding the case.
Earlier, Mr Cameron said he had seen no evidence the Scottish government had been “swayed” by lobbying from oil company BP.
The firm is already facing widespread criticism in the US for its handling of the enormous oil leak from one of its platforms in the Mexican Gulf.
BP would have to explain any representations it had made over Megrahi, Mr Cameron said at a White House press conference after a three-hour meeting with US President Barack Obama.
He and President Obama had been in “violent agreement” that freeing the bomber last August had been an error, he added.
Mr Cameron, on his first official trip to the US since becoming prime minister, said: “Releasing the Lockerbie bomber, a mass murderer, was completely wrong.
“He showed his victims no compassion. They were not allowed to die in their beds at home.”
But he added: “That was not a decision taken by BP, it was a decision taken by the Scottish government.”
‘Strict criteria’
Mr Obama said people in the US had been left “surprised, disappointed and angry”.
Some 270 people died in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Scotland, most of them Americans.
The bomber was freed by Mr MacAskill and allowed to go home to Libya.
The Scottish government said the decision to free Megrahi had been “based on strict justice criteria and no other factor”.
BP has insisted it had no discussions with either the UK or Scottish governments over the issue.
Source: BBC