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UK minister rekindle Lockerbie row over oil deals
[Iran Press TV Latest] After weeks of denials from London, Britain's Justice Secretary has admitted that lucrative trade deals were linked to the inclusion of the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer deal with the oil-rich Libya. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph published on Saturday that could rekindle uproar over the Lockerbie bomber release, Jack Straw also added that he was unapologetic about the motives, as it ended in a multi-million dollar oil deal by BP and Libya six weeks later. Terminally ill Abdelbaset al Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 bombing atrocity that killed 270 people, was released last month from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds. The new revelation comes as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other officials keep on insisting that there has been "no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double dealing, no deal on oil" over the release the 57-year-old former Libyan agent. Straw's spokesman accused the press of "outrageous" innuendo, after the minister said trade was "a very big part" of the 2007 talks that clinched the prisoner deal (PTA). But officials admit the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) was part of a wider set of negotiations aimed at bringing Libya in from the international cold, and improving British trade prospects with the oil-rich African country. "Libya was a rogue state...We wanted to bring it back into the fold... that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal," Straw told the paper in justification of the agreement. Straw sought to clear Brown from any blame in the matter saying he had acted on his own authority and no consultation with the premier had taken place. Internal government letters leaked to the Sunday Times daily and documents released by the UK Government, meanwhile, show Straw changing his original stance to exempt Megrahi's from any prisoner deal with Libya, and in 2007 even advising on the move. Posted by: Fred 2009-09-06 |
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