Senators question if BP played role in Pan Am bomber's releaseBy Jesse Solomon, CNN
July 13, 2010 -- Updated 1359 GMT (2159 HKT)
(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.
BP, which plans to begin offshore drilling in Libya in the coming months, touted the 2007 oil agreement as "the single biggest exploration financial commitment an international energy company has ever made to Libya," according to the company's website.
The troubled oil giant stands to earn as much as $20 billion from the deal, according to Lautenberg.
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."
In response, the British Embassy in Washington posted a letter on its website from the British ambassador to Gillibrand on defending Megrahi's release.
"The decision to grant Mr. Megrahi's compassionate release was made on the basis of advice from the Director of Health at the Scottish Prison Service, who drew on the advice of a number of medical experts," the ambassador said.
Brian Flynn, who lost his brother in the attack and fought vigorously to deny Megrahi's freedom, said he isn't surprised that Megrahi is still alive and believes BP was directly responsible for his release.
"You can't allow the process of justice to be corrupted by the cynical mercantilism of one company," Flynn said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/13/bp.release.connection/index.html?hpt=T2&fbid=_SsLk6TKlEkOf course the piece of shit doctor that the Libyan snakes shopped around for to diagnose this dirtbag with the "3 months to live" tag is now saying he could live for years.
