WASHINGTON — BP’s oil- spill notoriety is reviving unwelcome attention from Congress on another issue: whether the oil company sought the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi to help get a $900 million exploration agreement with Libya off the ground.
Soon after al-Megrahi’s release in August, BP acknowledged it had urged the British government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya but stressed it didn’t specify his case. It reiterated that stance this week when four Democratic senators asked the State Department to investigate whether there was a quid pro quo for the Lockerbie bomber’s release.
“The evidence here may be circumstantial, but if I were a prosecutor, I’d love to take this case to a jury,” said New York Sen. Charles Schumer, one of the four lawmakers.
Although the State Department was noncommittal, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced this week that it would hold a hearing on the case this month.
Al-Megrahi served eight years of a life sentence for the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people aboard, most of them Americans, and 11 people on the ground. In August, Scotland released the cancer-stricken man on compassionate grounds and he returned to Libya.
As outrage swirled, then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied giving any assurances to Libya’s leaders that the bomber would be freed in exchange for oil contracts.
BP acknowledged in a statement at the time that it “did bring to the attention of the U.K. government in late 2007 our concerns about the slow progress in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Like many others, we were aware that delay might have negative consequences for U.K. commercial interests, including ratification of BP’s exploration agreement.”
Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary who freed al-Megrahi, said Friday that he had no contact with BP as he decided the Libyan’s fate.
Doctors advising Mac Askill gave al-Megrahi three months to live in August 2009. Earlier this month, Professor Karol Sikora, who examined al-Megrahi for the Libyan government, was quoted as saying the Libyan could live another 10 years.
Sikora, however, says his comments have been misconstrued. “When asked by a . . . reporter if it was possible that Mr. Megrahi could live another 10 years, my response was, ‘Yes, it’s possible but highly unlikely,’ ” Sikora said. “This answer was twisted into a statement, repeatedly used in the media, that I now thought he would live another 10 years.”
