LONDON: Britain denied Wednesday any “double-dealing” with Libya over the release of the Lockerbie bomber but admitted it had not wanted the former Libyan agent to die in a Scottish prison.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted the release of Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi was entirely a matter for the Scottish government, which freed him on compassionate grounds last month because he is dying of cancer.
“There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to influence Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Col. Qaddafi,” he said. The comments came as a Libyan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Al-Megrahi had been admitted to hospital intensive care in Tripoli three days ago. No further details were immediately available.
Brown met Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in July, weeks before the Scottish decision to free Al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 bombing of a plane over Scotland which killed 270 people.
On Wednesday the British premier — who underlined the strategic aim of bringing Libya back into the international fold — stopped short of confirming that he had favored releasing Al-Megrahi from prison before his death.
But Foreign Secretary David Miliband acknowledged that London did not want the Libyan to die in Greenock prison, west of Glasgow, from where he was released on Aug. 20. “We did not want him to die in prison... we weren’t seeking his death in prison,” Miliband told BBC radio, in the first public admission of London’s stance by a senior minister. And he insisted: “There was no pressure from the British government on the Scots.”
The fresh comments came nearly two weeks after Al-Megrahi was released and was allowed to return to Libya because he is dying of prostate cancer and could have less than three months to live.
Al-Megrahi, jailed for at least 27 years in 2001 over the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, served eight years of a life sentence before being released on Aug. 20.
