UK official says oil was part of Lockerbie talks

[rastamanila 313]

UK official says oil was part of Lockerbie talks

 

 

 

By JILL LAWLESS

 

(AP) Released Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, is seen in a hospital bed in Tripoli Sunday Aug....

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LONDON (AP) - Trade and oil considerations played a major role in the decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya, a senior British official said in an interview published Saturday.

 

Justice Secretary Jack Straw said trade, particularly a deal for oil company BP PLC (BP.), was "a very big part" of the 2007 negotiations that led to the prisoner deal. The agreement was part of a wider warming of relations between London and Tripoli.

 

"Libya was a rogue state," Straw was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph newspaper. "We wanted to bring it back into the fold and trade is an essential part of it - and subsequently there was the BP deal."

 

The British government has faced intense criticism over the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. The attack killed 259 people aboard the plane, most of them American, and 11 on the ground.

 

Last month Scottish officials freed al-Megrahi, 57, on compassionate grounds because he is dying of prostate cancer.

 

Although he was not released under the prisoner transfer agreement, opposition politicians, and many victims' families, claim business considerations influenced the decision to free him.

 

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted there was "no conspiracy, no cover up, no double dealing, no deal on oil" over the bomber's release.

 

But officials admit the prisoner transfer agreement was part of a wider set of negotiations aimed at bringing Libya in from the international cold, and improving British trade prospects with the oil-rich nation.

 

David Lidington, foreign affairs spokesman for the main opposition Conservatives, said it was "very hard to square what Jack Straw says today with Gordon Brown's repeated denials of any kind of deal."

 

"That's why we need an independent inquiry to get to the truth."

 

Documents released by the government show Straw had originally tried to ensure that al-Megrahi was exempted from any prisoner deal with Libya, but in December 2007 he changed his mind. He wrote in a letter to his Scottish counterpart that "wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage" and a blanket agreement was in "the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom."

 

Soon after, Libya ratified a $900 million oil exploration deal with BP. The oil company acknowledged Friday that it had urged the government to sign the prisoner transfer deal, but insisted it had not singled out al-Megrahi as part of the discussion.

 

Straw said Brown had not been involved in negotiations over the prisoner agreement.

 

"I certainly didn't talk to the PM," he was quoted as saying. "There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all."

[Kwicko 8]

Hell, I'd just as soon have a REAL investigation into whether al-Magrahi was ever involved in Lockerbie in the first place. Apparently, there's plenty of doubt about that.

[rastamanila 313]

I'm normally happily unpolitical and happiest at the firing range. But as a journalist (we aren't all the same by the way) seeing this shit really pisses me off. Gordon Brown is just about the most plastic image-managing motherfucker I have ever seen. Personally, I cannot and will not comprehend how the Scots sleep well at night. This "compassionate" decision stinks. Explain that to the families of the victims. "We wanted to bring Libya back in..." also stinks. This sad shit is all about oil, greed, and utter ignorance of justice, what is right, and the feelings of the families of those poor victims. History will not judge Gordon and the Scots well. Lockerbie must not be forgotten.

[uzitiger 193]

I'm normally happily unpolitical and happiest at the firing range. But as a journalist (we aren't all the same by the way) seeing this shit really pisses me off. Gordon Brown is just about the most plastic image-managing motherfucker I have ever seen. Personally, I cannot and will not comprehend how the Scots sleep well at night. This "compassionate" decision stinks. Explain that to the families of the victims. "We wanted to bring Libya back in..." also stinks. This sad shit is all about oil, greed, and utter ignorance of justice, what is right, and the feelings of the families of those poor victims. History will not judge Gordon and the Scots well. Lockerbie must not be forgotten.

 

I agree with you about Gordon Brown he is an Islamic appeaser and unfortunately we have a POS in the White House who is as bad. There is a Jewish saying called the "compassion of fools"; "he who is merciful to the cruel is going to be cruel to the merciful" Having compassion on terrorists is cruel to the victims and their families. The British gun ban is an example of this compassion of fools which coddles criminals while self defense is seen worse than the crime being committed.

 

The British have gone out of their way to appease the Muslim infestation in their country. They stopped teaching about the holocaust because it's offensive to Muslims while they should be teaching about the Arab and British complicity instead. T The British banks stopped giving away piggy banks because the Muslims find pigs offensive (as if they aren't).

 

The sun has set on the British Empire and they have gone down the drain like other empires from laziness, decadence (homosexuality) and socialism and I'm not surprised they would sell their whatever pride they have left for oil. They are the only country which glorifies homosexuality. Remember the song Lola? A lola is a fag in drag in British slang.

[Bean.223 365]

I spent the last week working out of town, sitting in a hotel room watching what cable they gave me. One thing I happened upon was a CSPAN broadcast of the Scottish Parliamen's debate concerning this very subject. What stuck me was how MOST ALL of Parliament(the Conservatives) where just TEARING INTO the Scottish official who had decided to let the TERRORIST go(cant remember his name)What I found interesting(but not surprised) was how the National Media had not reported how UNPOPULAR this move was in Scotland!!!

Edited September 13, 2009 by Bean.223