U.K. to publish correspondence over release of Lockerbie bomber

LONDON (AP) — The British government will publish its correspondence with Scottish ministers over releasing the Lockerbie bomber, a government spokeswoman said Monday, a day after a newspaper reported that officials believed a deal was in the U.K.’s “overwhelming interests.”

A spokeswoman at Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office said all “relevant correspondence” between British ministers and the Scottish executive over Abdel Baset al-Megrahi would be released today, but would not give any more details. She spoke anonymously in line with government policy.

The Sunday Times reported that the British government allowed Abdel Baset al-Megrahi to be included in a prisoner-transfer agreement because it was in the U.K.’s “overwhelming interests” as a major oil deal was being negotiated.

Jack Straw, Britain’s justice minister, had originally tried to ensure that al-Megrahi was exempted from any prisoner-transfer agreement with Libya, but in December 2007 he wrote Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill saying “wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in the view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom” a standard prisoner- transfer agreement, that would apply to all prisoners with no exemptions, would be agreed to, the Times said.

The oil deal, the Times reported, was concluded six weeks later.

Al-Magrahi was released this month on compassionate grounds, instead of through a prisoner-transfer agreement. Scottish and British officials insist that there is no connection between any oil deals and al-Megrahi’s release.

“There was no deal over [the] release of al-Megrahi nor could there ever be, since all decisions were for the Scottish, not U.K. government,” Downing Street said in a statement released Monday. “The central assertion in this story is completely untrue and deeply misleading.”

Straw called any suggestion that there was a secret, back-door deal “untrue” and called it “academic” because the Scottish government sent him to Tripoli on compassionate grounds rather than by transfer agreement.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the U.S would leave Britain to deal with the allegations.