Did BP want Pan Am bomber released?

Senators question if BP played role in Pan Am bomber's release

(CNN) -- A group of U.S. lawmakers have called for an investigation into whether BP may have played a role in lobbying for the release of Abdel Basset al Megrahi to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government.

Megrahi, now 58, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

He was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds in August after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

"Reports have surfaced indicating that a 2007 oil agreement may have influenced the U.K. and Scottish governments' positions concerning Mr. Megrahi's release in 2009," wrote Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey in a letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Monday.

"The families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103 deserve to know whether justice took a back seat to commercial interests in this case," Lauternberg said.

Mark Salt, a spokesman for BP in Houston, Texas, declined to discuss the Senators' probe.

"We're not going to comment on speculation," he said.


Megrahi, who only served eight years of his life sentence for the bombing, was released by a Scottish court on "compassionate" grounds, citing a doctor's opinion at the time that he was dying from prostate cancer and only had three months to live.

In a letter to the British government last week, Lauternberg was joined by Democratic Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York, and Bob Menendez of New Jersey in calling the validity of such a prognosis into question.

"Mr. Al Megrahi is still alive and reportedly living in luxury," the letter said. "The doctor responsible for the key medical opinion has told the media that not only could Mr. Al Megrahi live another 10 years, but that the Libyan government had commissioned the doctor to make his assessment."

Source

-----------
Things keep adding up for BP. Doesn't seem to stop. This isn't a fact just yet. But just shows you what lengths Oil Companies are willing to go for money.

And thanks kosmicjack for the applause.

[edit on 13-7-2010 by Oozii]

[edit on 13-7-2010 by Oozii]

Smells like conspiracy!

Main benefactor EXXON!

Let them fix the leak, stop all efforts to aid in the clean up where possible.

Destroy BP financially, ruin public image, leverage buyout.

US takes over!

And an oil exploration company exec's wife gets hit with a bomb. Odd.....

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by wylekat


Yeah pretty crazy. I didn't believe the article that I read, since it didn't mention anything about the women being a wife of an oil exec. Just the Hyperlink I clicked on from another site to the article did.

reply to post by Oozii


BP were certainly part of it, but they are not the bad boys in the overall scheme of the bombing.

The UK and US governments are up to their necks in it.

He was released prior to his appeal where new evidence would have been heard, his original trial was a stitch up. Once released the appeal was dropped and this decision suited everybody.

I hope he lives long enough for his memoirs to be published, all based on his abandoned appeal. It has potential to get a bit fruity.

Wow, doesn't it seem like the conspiracies are just falling into our laps now a days? It sure doesn't take a tin foil hat to spot this one.

reply to post by Oozii


To answer the question posed by the OP, I guess if releasing Abdel Basset al Megrahi would help BP get contracts from the Libyan government, then the answer would be yes.

And based on commerical needs of all the oil exploration companies in the world, even American companies, all of them would have wanted better better realtions with the Libyan government.

This smacks of Government dis-information about BP. Would these law makers ask questions about US companies that benefitted from the release?

Here's a few updates I got from the source in the first post.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: BP says it spoke with UK about "slow progress" of prisoner transfer agreement

NEW: BP denies pushing for Megrahi's release

NEW: UK, BP say oil deal part of prisoner agreement but not Megrahi

Hmmm, There are still things that need to be looked at. Like the reason the doctor said he had 3 months to live to prostate cancer.

reply to post by Oozii


These Senators are either massaging their own ego's or ( as someone else poster) trying to drive down the price of BP with further bad press.

It has already been published that BP had lobbied the British Government about a prisoner transfer.

Edit to add - this story was published almost a year ago.

BP lobbied Jack Straw before he changed mind over Lockerbie bomber

Jack Straw was personally lobbied by BP over Britain’s prisoner transfer agreement with Libya just before he abandoned efforts to exclude the Lockerbie bomber from the deal.

The Times has learnt that the Justice Secretary took two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen, a former M16 agent, who was by then working for BP as a consultant, on October 15 and November 9, 2007.

Source The Sunday Times



[edit on 14-7-2010 by Knobby]

Although this has been carefully stated as an issue with BP, you can not disengage the UK/Scottish Govs involvement throughout the whole process, indeed they are the ones that made the decision (lobbied or not) the fault lies at their feet.

If the Senate investigation does go ahead, given that it would need to probe the UK involvment, I can see this issue escalating into yet another round of butting heads between the US and UK..

As an aside:
My personal opinion is that I wanted to see the appeal go ahead and what new evidence (if any) was to be presented.