The justice secretary, Jack Straw, today denied fresh allegations that he gave the Scottish government the green light to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, in the "overwhelming interests" of wider trade and oil negotiations with the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
Alex Salmond's Scottish National party cabinet had the power to free Megrahi and could have refused to do so, said Straw, adding that "Libya could have done nothing about it" and Whitehall would not have interfered. He made his comments as hostility in Scotland over Megrahi's release threatened to damage the SNP strategy for an independence referendum.
After publication of leaked letters purporting to show that Straw had reversed an earlier decision to exclude the Libyan agent – convicted after a trial in the Netherlands in 2001 – from the proposed 2007 UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement (PTA), he admitted the issue had become a stumbling block. Libya had resisted that exclusion, and he had changed tack for that reason.
"In a negotiation you do not get everything you seek. What you have to do is protect your vital concerns," he said. Most PTAs between countries did not "carve out" particular names from the agreement. In any case, Megrahi had not been released under the 2007 agreement, but under his Scottish counterpart, Kenny MacAskill's autonomous power to show compassion to a dying man, he said.
With MacAskill facing censure after a debate on his decision in Holyrood on Wednesday, the case is acquiring growing significance in Scottish internal politics. Despite voter hostility in Scotland and outrage in the US, Salmond plans to publish his referendum bill on Thursday.
Today Straw was forced back into the debate after the Sunday Times claimed Megrahi had been "set free for oil" – a reference to BP's £500m exploratory agreement with the Libyan regime shortly after the PTA. Echoing Lord Mandelson's complaint that the charge was implausible and offensive, Straw called it an "absurd confection". What is not in dispute is that London had been keen to normalise relations with Tripoli after Gaddafi's renunciation of nuclear ambitions in 2003 and that Salmond had opposed including Megrahi in the 2007 PTA.
Labour officials in Edinburgh, from where cross-border correspondence appears to have been leaked, poured scorn on the idea of any deal over Megrahi's release.
"How could Tony Blair or Gordon Brown offer a deal to Gaddafi which would depend on getting Alex Salmond to do something?" an official said.
Scottish Labour MP Russell Brown today dismissed the leaks as "a complete red herring." But calls for an inquiry were repeated by the former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell. In Scotland, MacAskill, a former defence lawyer, was accused of ignoring guidelines and the existence of an outstanding legal appeal by the Crown Office's prosecution team, which sought a longer sentence than Megrahi's 27 years.
That alone would have prevented the minister using the PTA to free Megrahi, even though the prisoner withdrew his appeal against conviction shortly before MacAskill's decision was announced without consulting the Crown Office.
In his appearances on TV todayScotland's first minister stressed the compassionate aspect of MacAskill's decision. Salmond said it was "in the best traditions and part of the rules of the Scottish legal system", adding: "More is achieved in this world through acts of mercy than acts of retribution." He said MacAskill's rejection of the PTA was wise, and said most countries had welcomed it.
An ICM poll at the weekend found only 32% of Scots favoured the release, with 74% fearing it had damaged Scotland's reputation. Like other UK ministers, Straw declined to express a view either way. But public anger may not easily recede if, as also reported, Megrahi lives to write his memoirs – justifying his insistence that he is innocent – or recovers from the prostate cancer that the Scottish prison service said would soon kill him.
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