Probe of BP’s role in release of Pan Am bomber justified

When Abdel Baset Ali al-Megra- hi, the mass murderer in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released last August from a Scottish prison and sent home to Libya, the outrage in this country was tempered by a medical report that said he would be dead in three months. He hasn’t died. In fact, the doctor who issued the initial diagnosis now says this personification of evil could live for another 10 years with his prostate cancer.

Anger would be too mild a reaction to this turn of events. The Scottish and British governments, which agreed to al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds, has a lot of explaining to do — especially in light of recent news reports that suggest the involvement of oil giant BP in the release of the Libyan spy.

Four U.S. senators, Democrats Kristen Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, have asked the State Department to investigate BP’s role in this obscene affair. The senators say they are concerned that the oil giant helped secure al-Megrahi’s release in order to finalize a $900 million offshore drilling deal with Libya.

BP, which has rightly become Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States because of the collapse of its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has spewed millions of gallons oil, must be called to account. The spill has devastated the fishing industry in the four Gulf states and has destroyed miles upon miles of ecologically delicate areas.

Even though BP, under pressure from President Obama, has agreed to establish a $20 billion escrow account to pay for the economic and environmental destruction, there are Republican members of Congress who have characterized the president’s dealings with the company as a “shakedown.”

The widely publicized apology from U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, to BP chief executive Tony Hayward shocked even some members of his own party. Barton was forced to apologize for the Hayward apology.

But the congressman’s initial characterization of BP as the victim of a “$20 billion shakedown” becomes all the more egregious in light of the latest revelation of the company’s involvement with the mass murderer, al-Megrahi. The bombing of Pan Am 103 claimed the lives 259 people on the plane — many of them Americans coming home for Christmas — and 11 on the ground as debris rained down on Lockerbie.

The Libyan intelligence officer was convicted in February 2001 by a special jury of Scottish judges sitting in the Netherlands after a trial of 85 days and 230 witnesses. He received a life sentence, with no parole eligibility for 20 years.

But last August, a Scottish judge ordered his release from custody — after he had served only eight years. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said that as the prisoner was given less than three months to live by doctors, al-Megrahi was eligible for compassionate release.

Hero’s welcome

The murderer received a hero’s welcome when he arrived in Libya. And today, the parents and relatives of the victims of the Pan Am bombing must not only continue to live with the loss of their loved ones, but must come to terms with the fact that a despicable human being is now living out his life in freedom.

The Scottish government was under pressure from the British government to release the murderer because then Prime Minister Gordon Brown did not want anything to interfere with the $900 million oil deal. The deal with announced in 2004 by Brown’s predecessor, Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Scottish and British governments have a lot of explaining to do, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should put pressure on them.