The US told Scotland it was “far preferable” to free the Lockerbie bomber than have him transferred to a Libyan jail, leaked documents showed on Sunday, amid renewed US criticism of the release.
Correspondence obtained by the Sunday Times newspaper reveals that despite Washington’s opposition to Scotland’s decision last year to free Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohment al-Megrahi, it considered it the most palatable option.
Megrahi was the only person convicted over the 1988 bombing of a US jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which killed 270 people, and his release on compassionate grounds – he has terminal cancer — was highly controversial.
The US Senate is reviewing the issue amid claims by US lawmakers that oil giant BP had pressured for Megrahi’s release, and anger that he remains alive in Libya despite being given just three months to live in August last year.
US President Barack Obama’s administration has condemned the decision to free Megrahi, but a letter sent by the deputy head of the US embassy in London just days before his release suggests it accepted the move.
The embassy official, Richard LeBaron, wrote to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials on Aug. 12 — a week before Megrahi’s release — saying Washington wanted Megrahi to remain in his Scottish jail.
“Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose,” LeBaron wrote.
Megrahi was eligible for transfer to a Libyan jail under a 2007 agreement between Britain and Libya, which BP had lobbied for in a bid to speed up a huge oil exploration deal it was making with the north African state.
In the event, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill rejected Libya’s request for a prison transfer for Megrahi.
LeBaron added that freeing Megrahi but making him live in Scotland “would mitigate a number of the strong concerns we have expressed with regard to Megrahi’s release,” according to the Sunday Times.
MacAskill rejected this option on security concerns and finally decided to free Megrahi under the long-standing Scottish policy of compassionate release — a decision he insists had nothing to do with BP.
Salmond confirmed the sentiment expressed in LeBaron’s letter, telling Sky News: “I think a fair description of the American government’s position is that they didn’t want al-Megrahi to be released.
“However, if he was to be released, they thought it was far preferable for compassionate release as opposed to the prisoner transfer agreement,” Salmond said.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the