We may never get to the root of the appalling events almost 22 years ago when 270 innocent people died as PanAm flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie.
But the WikiLeaks papers tell us much about the way in which public authorities across a number of countries behaved in the lead up to and aftermath of the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only man convicted of the bombing.
The picture that emerges from WikiLeaks may encourage a cynical view of government actions. We can, though, take some comfort from the documentary evidence that the devolved Government behaved impeccably. The leaks provide evidence that the Scottish Government did, indeed, make its decision on compassionate grounds and refused to be bullied into releasing Megrahi by the UK Government. The evidence of extraordinary cynicism on the part of the UK Government and its supporters is shocking. This is best summed up in a communication from US officials in the London embassy who informed Washington that “the UK Government has gotten everything -- a chance to stick it to Salmond’s Scottish National Party (SNP) and good relations with Libya” while Scotland got “nothing”.
It is clear from the documents that expectations of Megrahi’s approaching death prior to his release were shared by more than the Scottish Government. Preparations were in hand for the likely consequences of the Libyan prisoner’s death in Scottish custody involving an “immutable timeline”, as American officials wrote seven months before his release. UK officials had prepared for the prospect of Megrahi’s death in custody and were “focused on transfer under PTA [prisoner transfer agreement]”, believing time was short. The Libyan reaction to the arrest of one of Gaddafi’s son’s in Switzerland had been a sobering experience.
Against this backdrop, Libya’s intention to cease “all UK commercial activity in Libya” immediately, reduce political ties and encourage demonstrations against “UK facilities”, as well as implicit threats to UK citizens in Libya, could not be taken lightly. It is impossible to know how long Megrahi would have lived had he not been released but the indications are that UK and US officials were preparing for an imminent and serious backlash.
While US Government spokesmen have portrayed the Lockerbie bombing as an essentially American event, US officials took a very different view prior to the release of Megrahi. They feared that US interests would be attacked in the event of the Libyan prisoner’s death if the Libyan Government “views the Pan Am 103 case as a joint US-UK issue”. American officials wrote of repercussions “even if we remain neutral”, a discussion of neutrality that sits uncomfortably with the subsequent US official position. ...read more
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/wikileaks-proves-scotland-was-right-on-megrahi-release-1.1073616
WIKILEAKS CABLE ON LOCKERBIE
http://yvonnefletcherlibyagate.blogspot.com.es/2012/06/libya-lockerbie-us-we-defer-to.html
