SNP Fury Over Lockerbie Deal

Feb 3 2008 By Mark Aitken

Megrahi Could Be Senthomein £450m Bp Oil Contract

A FURIOUS row was brewing last night after the agreement of a secret £450million oil deal that could send the Lockerbie bomber back to Libya.

Insiders claim the UK Government agreed to let Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi go home to save fuel giant BP's contract.

The Scottish Government last night demanded answers after the deal got the green light.

Westminster had agreed with Libya to send back prisoners from the north African country.

But UK ministers have no power to move inmates in Scottish jails and the Libyans put the deal on hold over fears that Megrahi could be left out.

A spokesman for First Minister Alex Salmond said: "We opposed a prisoner transfer agreement which is open-ended and failed to secure the exclusion that the UK government pledged to seek.

"The latest allegations are very serious and it is for the UK government to explain how and why they arrived at the present position."

Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, which killed 270 people.

Salmond has previously accused Gordon Brown's Government of failing to ensure Megrahi was kept out of its agreement.

The First Minister claimed that without an exclusion clause, a prisoner could go for a judicial review, taking the matter out of Scottish hands.

Saad Djebbar, a Londonbased lawyer who has worked with the Libyans on the Lockerbie case, said: "The matter of Megrahi had delayed matters, not just for BP but all other commercial arrangements."

He said Libya had been waiting for a sign of "goodwill".

The UK Ministry of Justice said: "The prisoner transfer agreement under negotiation is a standard agreement which requires the consent of the prisoner and the states involved.

"It doesn't rule anybody in or out. All parties must agree for a transfer to take place."

Megrahi is in Greenock prison after being moved from his isolation unit in Glasgow's Barlinnie.

Under the oil deal he would serve the rest of his sentence in a Libyan jail.

His appeal against his conviction is due in court this month but a full appeal is not expected to be heard until the end of the year.

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