TIMES ONLINE: A veteran United States senator has asked Congress to investigate whether negotiations for a lucrative Libyan oil contract played a role in the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
The call from Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, will add to the pressure on Gordon Brown, who has been accused of damaging - or even killing off - the transatlantic "special relationship" by backing the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
The Prime Minister insisted yesterday that there had been nothing underhand in the decision by the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to free al-Megrahi. The 57-year-old is dying from prostate cancer.
“There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi,” Mr Brown told an audience in Birmingham.
The former Libyan intelligence office served just eight years of a life sentence for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people including 11 on the ground. Two-thirds of the victims were American and their relatives reacted with fury to the news that he was to be freed.
Mr Lautenberg called for a Senate investigation into the decision in a letter to Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican member. He said that the congressional panel “must expose the truth" and “uncover whether justice took a back seat to commercial interests". >>> Philippe Naughton | Thursday, September 03, 2009
