THE US has hit back at claims it was guilty of “double talk” over the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber – insisting it always wanted him to die in jail.
The Obama administration intervened after it emerged that US officials argued last year that if Scotland was to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohment al-Megrahi, he should stay on Scottish soil and not be sent home to Libya.
But officials said yesterday that they had hoped Megrahi would never be freed after being convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans.
The US is outraged that Megrahi is still alive, nearly a year after being freed on compassionate grounds, due to terminal cancer. Megrahi was expected to live no more than three months after his release. “The preference enunciated by every level of this government was for him to continue to serve the sentence that he was serving until he died,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Mr Gibbs said US diplomats at the time argued that should the Scots ignore US pleas and release Megrahi, “whatever you do, do not let him travel to Libya. Do not let him have a hero’s welcome coming home”.
On Sunday, the US State Department released a letter sent by a senior US embassy official to the Scottish government last year on Megrahi, after it was leaked to London’s Sunday Times.
The newspaper said the letter suggested to Scottish ministers that US opposition to the release of Megrahi was “half-hearted”.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley explained the unusual move to release the letter, saying, “the story yesterday seemed to suggest that we were not against the idea of compassionate release”.
In the letter, US charge d’affaires Richard LeBaron reiterated strong US opposition to the idea of freeing Megrahi, due to the “heinous” nature of his crimes and the likely “devastating impact” on victims of the attack.
But he wrote: “If Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose.”
The US Senate is re-examining the issue, which clouded British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Washington last week, amid claims by US legislators that oil giant BP had pressured for Megrahi’s release.
Megrahi was eligible for transfer to a Libyan jail under a 2007 agreement between Britain and Libya, which BP had lobbied for in a bid to speed up a huge oil exploration deal it was making with the North African state.
In the event, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill rejected Libya’s request for a prison transfer for Megrahi.
He freed Megrahi under longstanding Scottish policy of compassionate release — a decision he insists had nothing to do with BP.
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