US OFFICIALS secretly advised Scottish ministers that freeing the Lockerbie bomber was “far preferable” to jailing him in Libya, it was claimed yesterday.
Leaked letters suggest President Barack Obama’s government considered compassionate release a better option to locking Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, 58, in prison in his home country.
And it raised fresh questions about the condemnation from the President and other senior US politicians over the Scottish Government’s decision to release the bomber last August.
A letter sent by Richard LeBaron, Deputy Head of the US Embassy in London, to the Scottish Government stated the US wanted Al Megrahi to stay in jail.
But if he was going to be released then Mr LeBaron said that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be “far preferable to prisoner transfer”.
Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said: “I think a fair description of the American Government’s position is that they didn’t want Al Megrahi to be released.
“However, if he was to be released, they thought it was far preferable for compassionate release as opposed to the prisoner transfer agreement.” Mr Salmond said this opposition was probably because the “deal in the desert” signed by ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, which paved the way for the prisoner transfer agreement, was signed at the same time as an oil deal with Libya.
The American Ambassador to the UK Louis Susman said yesterday the US was examining if its correspondence could be released.
Al Megrahi was jailed for blowing up Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, killing 270 people. He was freed after doctors said he had three months to live.
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