WASHINGTON — British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday said his government will review the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish prison while turning aside calls in the U.S. for an fresh investigation of the case.
Cameron and President Barack Obama, at a joint news conference in Washington, denounced the release of Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi by authorities in Scotland last year.
The British leader is seeking to head off a new round of questions being raised by some U.S. lawmakers over whether London-based BP influenced the decision to release al-Megrahi as it sought access to Libyan oil fields. Cameron said there is no evidence the company had a role in the decision.
While Cameron said his government is willing to make public any relevant documents and cooperate with any U.S. congressional hearings on the case, he said he saw no need for another probe.
“I don’t need an inquiry to tell me what was a bad decision,” said Cameron, who opposed al-Megrahi’s release. “Publishing this information, combined with the inquiries there’s already been, will give people the certainty that they need about the circumstances surrounding this decision.”
The renewed attention to the Lockerbie case has added to the friction between the U.S. and U.K. resulting from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico triggered by the April 20 blowout of a company well that also killed 11 rig workers. It is the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
Obama said he welcomed the review, saying all the facts must be revealed to satisfy questions.
“All of us here in the United States were surprised, disappointed and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber,” Obama said, adding that his administration expressed “very clearly our objections” before and after the decision was made.
“We welcome any additional information,” he said. “We should have all the facts. They should be laid out there.”
Al-Megrahi was freed by Scotland, which has an independent justice system, on compassionate grounds in August 2009 because he was dying of cancer. He remains alive. The Libyan was jailed in 2001 for the 1988 killing of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
Cameron said he and Obama were in “violent agreement” that the release of the Lockerbie bomber “was completely wrong.”
Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, all Democrats, are pressing for an inquiry into the matter.
The State Department on Monday released a letter Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wroteto senators, saying the U.S. will press Scottish and British authorities to review the circumstances of al-Megrahi’s release.
Cameron met with the four senators Tuesday afternoon. Lautenberg said afterward that he found the prime minister’s response “slightly disappointing, but not unexpected.”
“The intimation is that a deal was made for oil, and trading it for a murderer, that’s the thing the American people see as a challenge,” Lautenberg said. “We are going to pursue this.”
The prime minister said at the news conference with Obama that he hadn’t seen any evidence that BP influenced the Scottish government to release the bomber and return him to Libya.
“The role of BP and any lobbying they might have done is an issue for BP, an issue they should explain themselves,” Cameron said. “I haven’t seen anything to suggest that the Scottish government were in any way swayed by BP.”
The company had no comment on Cameron’s remarks, spokesman Scott Dean said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
BP previously has said that while it had lobbied the U.K. government to speed up a prisoner transfer deal with Libya, it had never had any discussions about al-Megrahi with either the U.K. or Scottish government. Al-Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds, rather than under the transfer agreement.
Cameron also said that while he understands the anger felt in the U.S. toward BP because of the Gulf oil spill, the company must remain viable.
He said he agreed with Obama that BP has an obligation to clean up the oil and compensate residents and businesses in the area that suffered economic damage.
The two leaders focused much of their meeting on Afghanistan and the discussions also touched on the global economic recovery, the Middle East peace process and keeping up pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.
Information for this article was contributed by Hans Nichols, Catherine Dodge and Peter S. Green of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 07/21/2010