Scotland¿s Justice Secretary today accused Libya of breaking a promise not to give freed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi a hero¿s welcome on his return home.
Kenny MacAskill told an emergency session of the Scottish Parliament: ¿It is a matter of great regret that Mr Megrahi was received in such an inappropriate manner.
¿It showed no compassion or sensitivity to the families of the 270 victims of Lockerbie.¿
He went on: ¿Assurances had been given by the Libyan government that any return would be dealt with in a low-key and sensitive fashion.¿
Mr MacAskill was speaking at a special session of the Scottish Parliament, recalled from its summer recess to allow MSPs to question him on his decision to free terminally-ill Megrahi.
The justice secretary defended his actions in freeing Megrahi on compassionate early release grounds, while turning down a request for him to be transferred to jail in Libya.
In a statement that was along similar lines to the one he made when announcing the decision last week, he said: ¿It was my responsibility to decide upon these two applications.
¿They were my decisions and my decisions alone.¿ But Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray told Parliament: ¿The Cabinet Secretary has mishandled this whole affair from start to finish.
¿Between the scenes of triumph in Tripoli and the pain and anger at home and abroad, is there anything Mr MacAskill now regrets about his decision and the way it was reached?¿ The Tories called the decision ¿flawed.¿
Earlier the former chief prosecutor who launched the case against the Lockerbie bomber today hit back at the head of the FBI for his attack on the Scottish justice system.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC was Scotland`s Lord Advocate when the prosecution was launched against Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi in November 1991,
FBI director Robert Mueller has written to Mr MacAskill condemning the decision to free cancer victim Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
The former chief prosecutor who launched the case against the Lockerbie bomber today hit back at the head of the FBI for his attack on the Scottish justice system.
But Lord Fraser said today he was ¿appalled¿ by the head of the FBI¿s outspoken attack. He said he would be writing a personal letter to Mr Mueller to invite him to Scotland, to ¿break bread and discuss some good whisky¿.
Lord Fraser told The Courier newspaper: ¿As a former Lord Advocate I¿m quite appalled that the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, should have set his face so openly against Scotland.
¿Bob has been a pro-Scotland nut. When he drives in to work he listens to pipe music and it shocks me that he has become so disillusioned with us that he now rejects us as pro-terrorist. We are not, and he knows that from his regular visits to Edinburgh.¿
Since the release, Mr MacAskill has been criticised for his decision, particularly from relatives of Americans killed in the bombing.
Mr Mueller, who was the US assistant attorney general responsible for the Lockerbie investigation, said he was outraged by the decision which made a mockery of the grief of the victims¿ families and undermined the rule of law.
In the letter to Mr MacAskill, Mr Mueller wrote: ¿Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law,¿ he wrote.
¿Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man¿s exercise of `compassion¿.¿
Megrahi, who has always claimed his innocence, served just seven years, five months and four days of his sentence in Scotland for the bombing of the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie in 1988, which left 270 people dead.
PA