US report demands Lockerbie bomber be returned to prison

A GROUP of US senators yesterday demanded the Lockerbie bomber be returned to jail as they branded the process which led to his release “incredibly flawed”.

The American politicians claimed the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds was based on an “inaccurate prognosis” that the Libyan, who has prostate cancer, had just three months to live.

They said the British government played a “direct, critical role” in the decision to free him in August last year, stating that “evidence suggests that British officials pressured Scotland to facilitate Al Megrahi’s release”.

And they said the SNP administration at Holyrood may also have been influenced by the “opportunity to act independently on the world stage” when Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill decided to grant Megrahi his freedom.

The four senators — Robert Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand — investigated the Libyan’s release.

The majority of the 270 people who lost their lives when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, were Americans.

Megrahi, who remains the only man ever convicted of the bombing, remains alive in Tripoli 16 months after being released from jail on compassionate grounds.

A Scottish government spokesman said the senators’ report was a “false interpretation” of events. He stressed that “due process” had been followed in every aspect of the Megrahi case.

The spokesman said: “This is not an official report of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — it is an incorrect and inaccurate rehash by four senators of material that has been in the public domain for many months, and we entirely reject their false interpretation.”

The senators’ report was published on the 22nd anniversary of the atrocity.

Earlier this month it emerged Britain faced threats from Libya of dire consequences if the ailing Lockerbie bomber died in a Scottish prison, according to confidential US cables released by WikiLeaks.

Threats included the cessation of all British commercial activity in Libya and demonstrations against British facilities, as well as suggestions Britons in the country could be put at risk, according to the cables.

And despite London’s attempts to publicly distance itself from the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the cables show enormous British relief at the move.