The role of the Foreign Office minister, Ivan Lewis, in the al-Megrahi affair merits some scrutiny.
The Sunday Times reports that, less than three weeks before al-Megrahi’s release, Lewis wrote to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Executive justice minister, to tell him that there was no reason not to accede to a request by Libya for the transfer of the terrorist to its custody under the terms of the 2007 agreement negotiated between Tony Blair and Gaddafi.
Lewis’s letter concluded:
“I hope on this basis you will now feel able to consider the Libyan application in accordance with the provisions of the prisoner transfer agreement.”
“Sources close to MacAskill” are now spinning that Lewis was effectively giving the nod to the Scottish authorities to release al-Megrahi, concerned by Libyan threats of adverse trade consequences if the bomber died in jail.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman, the Times reports, has denied that that is the case:
“Ivan’s letter was in response to a letter from Kenny MacAskill on July 16, which requested more information about the agreements in 1998-9 between the UK and Libyan governments. Having previously provided this, Ivan Lewis reiterated our understanding of the legal situation.
“He explicitly said in the letter that when his officials had given this advice to Scottish ministers, ‘They were not making representations on whether Megrahi ought to be transferred to Libya’.”
What is odd, however, is the very fact that the exchange of correspondence between MacAskill and Lewis took place at all. MacAskill, given his role as Scottish justice minister, would have had ready access to specialist legal advice. He would have had no need to seek Lewis’s “understanding of the legal situation”. Had his advisers needed further factual information from Whitehall, they would have been able to obtain it on an official-to-official basis. It is hard to see why the Scottish Executive should find any need whatever to correspond with the FCO at political level.
As time passes, the al-Megrahi affair looks increasingly murky. It frankly beggars belief that, given its obviously huge international ramifications, Whitehall would look on quiescently as the process leading to the Libyan’s release evolved in Edinburgh; the Lewis-MacAskill correspondence is the first inkling we have had that such was not the case.
The issue will not go away; the longer the silence continues, the more the facts will slowly leak out. Gordon Brown should make a statement on the affair as soon as possible; his continued silence will result in only greater damage to the national interest.
“If the bomber died in jail” Why do we use these euphemisms? The man is a murderer, so use the word. “if the murderer died in jail”.