THE SCOTTISH government initially tried to block the transfer of the Libyan jailed for the Pan Am flight 103 Lockerbie bombing, and had urged Downing Street to reject Libya’s demand for his return, it has emerged.
The release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi last month was justified by Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill on the grounds that he has terminal cancer and could be dead within months.
However, questions were raised over whether the UK had bowed to pressure to ensure British companies could win lucrative oil and gas contracts in Libya.
Letters published by British justice secretary Jack Straw yesterday showed that Libya had insisted from the start that Megrahi had to be able to qualify for a return home if talks on a prisoner-transfer pact between Tripoli and London were to succeed.
The Edinburgh government, however, sought and received assurances in September 2007 from London that it would not bow to such demands.
Three months later, Mr Straw changed his mind and told Edinburgh it would not be “necessary or sensible” to risk damaging the UK’s relations with Libya by vetoing the Lockerbie bomber’s possible return home.
In a letter in December 2007 to Mr MacAskill, Mr Straw admitted he had not been able to secure an exemption for Megrahi but he had decided to go ahead with a prisoner-transfer deal with Tripoli, “in view of the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom”.
Despite assurances to Edinburgh that it had a final veto, it is clear from yesterday’s published letters that Mr Straw and other London figures repeatedly returned to the possibility that Megrahi might one day be sent home.
In November last year, Mr Straw wrote to Scottish first minister Alex Salmond pointing out Libyan “concerns” about Megrahi’s health, but he stressed it was a matter for the devolved Scottish government to rule on.
Last August, British junior foreign office minister Ivan Lewis wrote to the Scottish justice secretary to say he hoped he would feel able to consider Megrahi’s return application under the by-then agreed prisoner pact.
Despite London’s repeated focus on this pact, Megrahi was eventually returned to Tripoli on compassionate grounds. The fury of the US over the decision was evident from the list of contacts between Washington, London and Edinburgh on the issue dating back to October last year, the files show.
The US charge d’affaires in Edinburgh met Mr Salmond early last December, while Mr Straw twice discussed the case by phone with US attorney general Eric Holder in June and mid-August.
In July, the foreign office told a senior Scottish official that London had not given a guarantee to Washington that Megrahi would never be released during its efforts to get his trial under way in the Netherlands under Scottish legal rules.
“We could not at the time rule out the possibility that our relations with Libya might one day change.
“The UK government consequently did not give the US an absolute commitment in relation to the future imprisonment of the Lockerbie accused,” official George Burgess was told.