Libya warned the United Kingdom that if the Lockerbie bomber died in prison in Scotland, it would have “catastrophic effects for the relationship between Libya and the U.K.,” documents declassified Tuesday show.
The statement was made by Abdulati Alobidi, the Libyan minister for Europe, to a British Foreign Office minister in February and was repeated to Scottish officials the following month, newly declassified Scottish government notes from the meetings say.
Alobidi earlier told Scottish officials it would be “a major problem should Mr. al Megrahi die in prison, and would be viewed as a form of death sentence.”
The Scottish and British governments released more than 100 pages of previously secret government letters Tuesday.
They are trying to squelch newspaper claims that the British government wanted al Megrahi to be eligible for release as a part of a deal allowing BP to drill for oil in Libya.
But they seem unlikely to put an end to the controversy over the release of the man convicted of killing 270 people in the bombing nearly 21 years ago.
Al Megrahi was released from prison last month because he has terminal cancer, and received a hero’s welcome in Libya.
(Source: CNN)
4 Responses
The Arab world works with threats & intimidation.
So far quite successfully so.
I would like someone to ask President Obama and the other world leaders if they would be just as repulsed if Israel released terroroist they are holding in prison.
Of course they wouldn’t be – just pointing out the double standard – not that it needs to be pointed out.
Funny that the idiot liberals in the UK kept calling Blair “Bush’s lapdog”.
I guess it’s better to release a man who helped kill 300 people?
The idiot liberal protesters in the UK kept saying Bush and Blair were all about oil, and yet their current government released a man who helped kill 300 people over an oil deal.
Where are the liberal protesters now? How pathetic.
England is really getting kicked around by the arabs in a lot of ways. Poor England!