Saturday, September 5, 2009
We already had the paper trail, but Jack Straw has admitted it in an interview. Not ashamed of it, either, though he insists Gordon Brown wasn't involved (at least, says he, there ain't no proof of that):
...So the PTA [prisoner transfer agreement] discussions were running in tandem with talks on freeing Megrahi by other means? "I think it [talk of compassionate release] came later, but I can't be certain," he says.
Later in 2007, he wrote to Mr MacAskill saying that he could not exclude Megrahi from the PTA. In the letter, he cited "overwhelming interests for the UK". The unanswered question is whether those interests included trade and, in particular, the stalled BP deal that was signed off soon afterwards. For the first time he admits the link.
When I ask if trade and BP were factors, he says: "Yes, it was a very big part of that. I'm unapologetic about that. Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold and trade is an essential part of it -- and subsequently there was the BP deal."
Reports that the PTA exclusion was agreed by government colleagues including Gordon Brown, are wrong, he says. "I certainly didn't talk to the PM. There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all." So when did he first talk to Mr Brown? "I don't think I've ever talked to Gordon about Megrahi's release." Not even in the past week? "Oh, for sure in the past week," he says. Surely this vagueness adds to the impression that the Government is being evasive, if not duplicitous? "I think we have been very frank about it," Mr Straw says, none too convincingly...
We also find that Libya paid for medical advice that helped Lockerbie bomber's release, and there was quite a bit of effort put in to get the docs to give the "right" prognosis:
...Two of the three doctors commissioned by the Libyans provided the required three-month estimates, while the third also indicated that the prisoner had a short time to live.
This contrasted with findings of doctors in June and July who had concluded that Megrahi had up to 10 months to live, which would have prevented his release.
Professor Karol Sikora, one of the examining doctors and the medical director of CancerPartnersUK in London, told The Sunday Telegraph: "The figure of three months was suggested as being helpful [by the Libyans].
"To start with I said it was impossible to do that [give a three-month life expectancy estimate] but, when I looked at it, it looked as though it could be done - you could actually say that." He said that he and a second doctor, a Libyan, had legitimately then estimated Megrahi's life expectancy as "about three months". A third doctor would say only that he had a short time to live.
This weekend it was reported that Megrahi was moved out of an emergency care unit in Tripoli...
The Brits have practically broken their own arms patting themselves on the back for how much more enlightened they are than we simple Yanks and our eye for an eye mentality -- as though it's difficult to let a murderer out of jail for money. Yet it turns out this was never anything but a base, disgusting business and a set up from the start.
More: The Megrahi affair: the more we learn, the worse it gets
Lockerbie release: the British aid 'sweetener' to Libya
Terror chief helped secure release of Lockerbie bomber
Medical experts urged to predict bomber's early death
Oil deal for a terrorist, not a surprise.