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LONDON (WSJ) — New statements by a top U.K. official and one of the country’s largest oil companies fed speculation by opposition politicians and victims’ families that the recent release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber is entangled with the country’s pursuit of oil interests in Libya.
Oil giant BP PLC said it lobbied the U.K. in late 2007 over a controversial prisoner-transfer agreement with Libya, and oil-rich Qatar lobbied Scotland on the case in June. On Saturday, U.K. Justice Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that, in 2007, wider trade issues involving oil played a part in leaving Abdel Baset al-Megrahi out of the prisoner-swap agreement that was being negotiated at the time between the U.K and Libya.
BP said Friday it told the U.K. government two years ago it was concerned that a delay in concluding a prisoner-transfer agreement with the Libyan government might hurt a $900 million oil deal it had just signed with the North African state in May 2007.
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi returns to Tripoli (BBC News)
Mark Allen, a special adviser to BP who played a prominent role as a chief U.K. negotiator in talks that led to Libya’s renunciation of its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, called Mr. Straw, the U.K. justice secretary, in October 2007 to discuss the slow progress on a transfer deal.
Mark Allen left MI6 because of the misuse of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war
My recent diary – Compassion Controversy – Freedom Lockerbie Terrorist
(Daily Telegraph) – Mr. Straw further fueled the controversy over the weekend, he acknowledged that oil interests played some role in his decision to include Mr. al-Megrahi in the prisoner-swap agreement. Trade, he said, was “a very big part” of the negotiations over the prisoner deal. He added that Libya was “a rogue state” that the U.K. wanted to bring into the fold: “Trade is an essential part of it–and subsequently there was the BP deal.”
Mr. Blair stepped down in June 2007. The prisoner-transfer agreement was signed between Libya and the U.K. government late that year. BP’s deal was ratified by the Libyan government officially in May 2008, but the approval date on the contract was Dec. 23, 2007, the BP spokeswoman said. The company’s Libyan deal was one of many signed in recent years with Western oil companies.
QATAR INTERESTS IN LOCKERBIE AFFAIR
(The Guardian) – The involvement of Qatari interests in the Lockerbie matter arose through minutes of a meeting in June between Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond and Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, Qatar’s Minister for International Cooperation, on June 11.
In the minutes, released by the Scottish government, Dr. al-Attiyah discussed “possible investment opportunities in Scotland,” but added that the emir of Qatar had asked him to discuss the case of Mr. al-Megrahi, about whose health they were “concerned.”
Dr. al-Attiyah followed up the meeting with a letter on July 17 in which he asked Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary who already was considering a prisoner-transfer application by Libya for Mr. al-Megrahi, on “compassionate” grounds.
Dr. al-Attiyah said the request was made on behalf of the emir and the Arab League, of which the emir was chairman. Mr. al-Megrahi applied for compassionate release later that month.
Lockerbie decision will be ‘rewarded’ by trade deals, say Libyan officials
(The Independent) – Gordon Brown declined to press Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for compensation for IRA bomb victims out of concern that a ministerial intervention might upset relations with Libya.
Last year the Prime Minister met campaigners seeking a cash payout from the Gaddafi regime, which supplied Semtex explosives used by republican bomb-makers.
But he told their lawyer in a letter last October that he did not consider it “appropriate” for the Government to enter bilateral talks with Libya on the matter, citing the need for continued co-operation from the north African state on issues like energy terrorism.
Downing Street rejected suggestions that Mr Brown’s decision was driven by the desire to avoid derailing lucrative potential oil deals involving British companies.
In November 2008, then Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell wrote: “Libya is now a vital partner for the UK in guaranteeing a secure energy future for the UK and is also a key partner in the fight against terrorism.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."