Monday, July 26, 2010

More on Lockerbie

I suspected at the time that the UK government would never have allowed convicted terrorist bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi to go free in Libya without having at least notified the U.S. government.

It turns out that the U.S. government gave a tacit go-ahead. According to The Sunday Times and the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. embassy in London wrote the Scottish government to say that (1) it wanted al-Megrahi to stay in prison but (2) if he didn't, it preferred compassionate release to sending him home under a Prisoner Transfer Agreement.

Now that the Scottish government is under fire, it wants the U.S. government to agree to release its documents. Too bad the Scots are refusing to testify on the Hill - if they did, this story would be very clear to all. It would certainly be educational to hear a U.S. spokesman explain just why it was preferable for al-Megrahi to go free. (Thanks to Jihad Watch.)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This story is so infuriating. Seems to me that the U.S.'s message should have been an unequivocal: Do Not Release Him. No qualifiers. No Plan B's. What were those State Dept folks thinking?

Leslie Lebl said...

I'm sure they weren't thinking that the embassy
letter would sooner or later see the light of day!