US senators seek probe of alleged BP-bomber link

Four US senators tonight asked the State Department to investigate whether oil giant BP played a role in winning last year’s release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie airliner bombing.

The four requested the probe a day after asking the department to press the British Government to look into the circumstances of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi’s release.

He was released on compassionate grounds after doctors said the cancer-stricken Libyan had only three months to live.

A doctor now says al-Megrahi could live for another decade.

Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey say they are concerned by reports that BP helped secure al-Megrahi’s release in order to finalise a $900m (€707m) offshore oil drilling deal with Libya.