Word: britains
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...deal? Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi flew home from a Scottish prison on Thursday, freed by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds because doctors say Megrahi's cancer will kill him within three months. But was that the real reason? Could Britain have traded Megrahi in return for lucrative deals with the energy-rich North African nation...
...British investment interests. "It [Megrahi's release] was a matter of when, not if," says Molly Tarhuni, manager of the international security program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. "It's a very strong possibility" that a deal was struck, she says. "There are benefits to Britain having done it. This was the last in a long chain of deals." (See pictures of Lockerbie 20 Years...
...That possibility is fueling a political row in London. Conservative Party leader David Cameron wrote to PM Brown Friday saying that "the public are entitled to know what you think of the decision to release Megrahi," which Cameron called "the product of some completely nonsensical thinking." Britain's Foreign Office ordered Buckingham Palace to reconsider a scheduled trade visit to Tripoli next month by Prince Andrew, according to the London Evening Standard. Much of the outrage was sparked by the jubilation in Libya after Megrahi's arrival. Foreign Secretary David Miliband told BBC Radio on Friday that "the sight...
...Megrahi was freed after serving only eight years of a life sentence for 270 counts of murder. U.S. officials had pleaded with Britain and Scottish officials in recent weeks to block his release, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that she was bitterly disappointed that he had been freed. There was also strong criticism from family members of some of the victims; 259 passengers were killed when a bomb exploded mid-air aboard the doomed aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, and 11 others who were on the ground died from falling debris. (Read: "Re-Opening the Lockerbie Tragedy...
...believe they were made a scapegoat in 1990-91 by an American government that had decided to go to war with Iraq and did not want complications with Syria and Iran, which had harboured the real perpetrators of the terrible deed." - Sir Tam Dalyell, a member of Great Britain's House of Commons from 1962 to 2005, calling al-Megrahi "the victim of one of the most spectacular (and expensive) miscarriages of justice in history" (The Times of London...