|
Jul 26
2010
|
"White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi"Posted by: Thomas Peters in APP Blog Tagged in: Untagged
|
|
Remember months and months ago when APP was urging the administration to act with transparency regarding the release of the Lockerbie bomber?
Recently we have been reading that our suspicions were accurate:
Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.
The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.
The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of Megrahi's release.
Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as "half-hearted" and a sign it would be accepted.
The US has tried to keep the letter secret, refusing to give permission to the Scottish authorities to publish it on the grounds it would prevent future "frank and open communications" with other governments.
[Read more from The Australian.]




