The disclosed correspondence between Whitehall and the Scottish Executive, as anticipated, fails to clarify the stance adopted by the British Government in its negotiations with the Libyan authorities.
The Scottish documents relate that the Libyan minister for Europe, Abdulati Alobidi, said that he had been informed by the Foreign Office minister, Bill Rammell, that neither Gordon Brown nor David Miliband wanted al-Megrahi to die in prison. That may be true; but we will not know until Bill Rammell makes a statement on the affair, or, even better, Gordon Brown and David Miliband do.
More interesting is Jack Straw’s letter to the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, in which he writes:
“The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom I have agreed that in this instance the PTA [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”
The question must therefore be: what where the overwhelming UK interests that dictated, at that “critical stage”, that what was previously considered a matter of the highest principle (i.e. the non-inclusion of al-Megrahi in the terms of the PTA) should be abandoned?
We will never know, unless and until Mr Brown and Mr Straw break their silence and make a statement supported by the relevant documents.
This, of course, will have to happen. Everyone knows that. The sooner it does, the better for all concerned, including Messrs Brown and Straw.
