Vol. 73/No. 36      September 21, 2009

Al-Megrahi was convicted on circumstantial evidence in 2001 for the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, in which 270 people died. The conviction came as part of the U.S. and British governments’ decades-long campaign against Libya.

Their hostility began after a 1969 popular coup in Libya led by Muammar Gaddafi that overthrew imperialist backed King Idris. In 1986 Washington bombed the capital, Tripoli, including Gaddafi’s residence and imposed economic sanctions.

Al-Megrahi, who is terminally ill, was granted “compassionate release” in August and returned to Libya. However, articles appeared in the British press implying that al-Megrahi’s release was connected to deals to facilitate contracts by British oil companies operating in Libya. “Al-Megrahi’s release ‘would free BP’ [British Petroleum] to join the rush for Libya’s oil,” read a headline in the August 15 London Times.

British prime minister Gordon Brown declined to comment on the decision, claiming it was a matter for the Scottish parliament. When pressed, Brown said there was “no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double dealing, no deal on oil” over the release, reported the BBC. Days later British justice secretary Jack Straw admitted that trade was part of a deal over prisoner releases that he made with the Libyan government in 2007.

“Libya was a rogue state,” Straw said. “We wanted to bring it back into the fold. And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal.” Straw was referring to a £550 million (£1=US$1.66) deal that the British oil company signed with Libya just weeks after Straw negotiated a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, which did not exclude al-Megrahi.

The prisoner release was approved in principle by former British prime minister Anthony Blair during visits to Libya in 2003 and 2007, said the BBC.

Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron condemned the British government’s negotiations with Libya as “a misjudgment.” A September 3 editorial in the Times argued that “Britain should not have traded its principles by letting him [al-Megrahi] go.”

President Barack Obama said al-Megrahi’s release was “a mistake.” The Scottish justice secretary’s decision “makes a mockery of the rule of law,” and “gives comfort to terrorists,” said FBI director Robert Mueller. Henry McLeish, the former first minister of the Scottish parliament, responded that al-Megrahi’s release was “none of his [Mueller’s] business.”

In an editorial on al-Megrahi’s release, titled “Brown the Betrayer,” the New York Daily News wrote, “Today’s British are a cowardly, unprincipled, amoral and duplicitous lot.” Disagreement over al-Megrahi’s release occurs as the “special relationship” between the U.S. and UK rulers has begun to fray.

Libya holds the largest oil reserves in Africa. Robin Pagnamenta, energy editor of the London Times, writes that Libya “is seen as a potential alternative to Russia as a supplier of gas to Western Europe.” BP representatives had urged Straw to rapidly conclude the prisoner agreement with Libya in 2007, the paper said.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the capitalist government in Libya led by Gaddafi has toned down it anti-imperialist rhetoric, abandoned its nuclear weapons program, paid billions of dollars to victims of terrorist attacks attributed to Libya, and opened up its vast natural resources to imperialist exploitation.

In a letter last year to Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, Straw said Libya had become an “important partner in the fight against terrorism” and was helping to police immigration.

To qualify for release on “compassionate grounds” al-Megrahi had to drop an appeal against his conviction. Since his return to Libya he has maintained his innocence. The Libyan government handed him over to Scottish authorities for trial in 1999 as part of a deal with the imperialist powers. UN and UK sanctions against Libya were then ended, although Washington’s were maintained until 2004.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home