The plot thickens (even more)...
Megrahi trade deal untrue - Straw
Justice Secretary Jack Straw has said reports the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released over an oil deal are "wholly untrue".
He denied a "back door deal" was done to transfer Megrahi because of UK trade talks with the Libyan government.
Letters leaked to a newspaper show UK ministers agreed to include him in a prisoner transfer deal in 2007 because of "overwhelming national interests".
Terminally ill Megrahi was recently released on compassionate grounds.
Pictures of Megrahi being treated in a Libyan hospital were shown on UK TV for the first time on Sunday.
A team from Channel 4 News were invited into his room, but he was reportedly too sick to answer any questions about claims his release was linked to a trade deal.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released Megrahi on 20 August, eight years into his 27-year sentence for murdering 270 people in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103.
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said the convicted bomber was released from a Scottish jail with no London involvement.
He was not released under a prisoner transfer agreement.
The British government has always maintained the decision to release Megrahi rested with Scotland, but revelations in the Sunday Times will fuel suspicions about the motivations behind his release, BBC correspondent Norman Smith says.
Leaked ministerial letters reveal UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw's change of stance over Megrahi's inclusion in a prisoner transfer agreement (
PTA).
According to the Sunday Times, Mr Straw wrote to his Scottish counterpart Kenny MacAskill on 19 December 2007, six weeks before an oil exploration contract for BP in Libya was ratified.
The letter said: "I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement. I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion.
"The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the UK, I have agreed that in this instance the [PTA] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual."
Responding to the report, Mr Straw said on Sunday that the "normalisation of relations with Libya" was in the UK's interests.
He said this was because they had uncovered "a huge nuclear weapons programme of the Libyans, which they had been conducting wholly in secret".
"As a result of painstaking, secret negotiations over months, an agreement was struck with them in December 2003 that they would allow the international atomic energy inspectors in to supervise the whole dismantling of their nuclear weapons programme.
"And yes, as part of that there would be gradual normalisation of relations with Libya, with the West as whole, not just with the United Kingdom.
Mr Straw said a prisoner transfer agreement was part of that agreement.
"But was there a deal? A covert, secret deal ever struck with the Libyans to release Megrahi in return for oil? No, there was not and there is no evidence whatsoever because it is untrue."
etc...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8229193.stm
Politicians are expert at denying certain things (which they're sure can't be disproved), and implying that this denial also refers to other matters which they haven't explicitly denied.
Personally, I'd be more bothered about Megrahi's release if I was convinced he was guilty in the first place.