Scotland rejects claim of deal in Lockerbie bomber's release

Scotland's most senior politician said today there was no conspiracy in his country's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, following US questions over oil company BP's influence on the process.

"We had no contact with BP, either written or verbal, or any lobbying of that kind as far as the process of compassionate release was concerned," Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond told BBC Radio 4.

Scotland, which has broad, independent legal powers, released Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi last August as it believed he had only months to live because of prostate cancer. He is still alive.

BP, facing intense US criticism over an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has confirmed that it lobbied the British government in late 2007 over a prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya, further angering US senators.

Prime minister David Cameron, who met US president Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday, condemned the release of the Libyan convicted of blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. The bombing killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

Salmond, who leads the pro-independence Scottish National Party and heads a minority government in Scotland's dissolved assembly, defended the decision to release Megrahi.

"You can only take a decision based on information at the time. It is not unheard of for people released on compassionate grounds to live longer than the estimated three months."

Salmond criticised former prime minister Tony Blair, saying he was negotiating on prisoner exchanges with Libya at the same time as discussing business deals in 2007 in what the Scottish leader called a ‘tainted process’.

"I think it was deeply unfortunate that you should negotiate a prisoner transfer agreement on a judicial matter on the same day that you sign an agreement on oil exploration and concessions," Salmond said. "But that's what then prime minister Tony Blair did in June 2007."

Blair visited Libya in late May 2007, a few weeks before he stood down as prime minister to be replaced by party colleague Gordon Brown.

Blair's office disputed Salmond's version of events, pointing out that the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya was finalised only in 2009, long after Blair had left office.

BP has confirmed it lobbied the then Labour government in late 2007 to express concern over slow progress in completing the prisoner swap agreement.

BP has said it knew this could hurt a BP offshore oil-drilling deal requiring approval by Libya.

The agreement took effect in April 2009, but the Scottish authorities did not use it when releasing Megrahi, a fact that Salmond said proved there was no conspiracy.

"A lot of people would have wanted the Scottish government to invoke the prisoner transfer agreement. If we had done, then the US senators who are arguing for this conspiracy on economic and oil concessions would have something to go on," Salmond said.