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WORLD> Europe
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Britain rejects talk of deal in Lockerbie release
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-23 16:18 Gadhafi's embrace fueled outrage that has simmered at al-Megrahi's reception in Libya, where joyful celebrants threw flower petals as the 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent stepped down from the jet late Thursday. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Friday condemned the scenes as "deeply distressing." The constant videos of the Gadhafi hug and the kiss have only added to the woes of Britain's leaders. Mandelson left the hospital Saturday after a prostate operation only to find a scrum of reporters demanding answers about an alleged deal. He insisted that London and Tripoli did not negotiate.
"A high-profile return would cause further unnecessary pain for the families of the Lockerbie victims. It would also undermine Libya's growing international reputation," Brown wrote. While Britain does have oil interests in Libya -- notably a $900 million exploration deal between BP PLC and Libya's National Oil Co. -- they are small compared to investments by Italy's Eni SpA. Even so, Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, said al-Megrahi's release was a constant point of discussion during trade talks. In comments aired on the Libyan television station he owns, he said those discussions stretched back to former Prime Minister Tony Blair's government. "In fact, in all the trade, oil and gas deals which I have supervised, you were there on the table," Gadhafi's son told al-Megrahi. "When British interests came to Libya, I used to put you on the table." Blair, who resigned in 2007, told CNN on Saturday that the Libyans did raise the issue of al-Megrahi but he told them he did not have the power to release the bomber. Mandelson agreed with Blair. "This goes back very many years," he said. "The Libyan government and representatives of Libya have always raised the issue of this prisoner." In a statement Saturday, Gadhafi's son also insisted that al-Megrahi was innocent. "There is a great deal of data, evidence and new facts that attest to his innocence. It is my hope that this will be proven one day," he said. Al-Megrahi was convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The explosion of a bomb hidden in the cargo hold killed all 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground in Britain's worst terrorist attack. His trial at a special Scottish court set up in The Netherlands, which came after years of diplomatic maneuvering, was a step toward normalizing relations between the West and Libya, which spent years under UN and US sanctions because of the Lockerbie bombing. Although Libya has accepted formal responsibility for the attack over Scotland, many in his homeland see al-Megrahi as an innocent victim scapegoated by the West. Al-Megrahi has maintained his innocence even as he dropped his appeal so that he could be released from prison. His lawyers have argued the attack was the result of an Iranian-financed Palestinian plot, and a 2007 Scottish judicial review of al-Megrahi's case found grounds for an appeal of his conviction. During an interview published Saturday in the Times of London, al-Megrahi said he had abandoned the appeal to spend what time he had left with his family. He promised to release what he described as evidence that would exonerate him -- but offered no details. "There was a miscarriage of justice," he was quoted by the Times as saying. In the interview, al-Megrahi told the Times he understood that the families of many Lockerbie victims were furious, but he appealed for understanding. "They believe I'm guilty, which in reality I'm not," he told the Times. "One day the truth won't be hiding as it is now. We have an Arab saying: The truth never dies."
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