The Libya plot thickens

Kay Adams

This Government are LIARS.

wonderfulforhisage

In all fairness, a better course of action than invasion a la Iraq.

Andy Leeds

Yes well Mandelson denied there was any link, so we all then knew there was one !

Fenman

If any one had doubts as to Brown`s veracity? These facts surely proves his and Labours total hypocrisy.

james

for once the Labour govn have acted 'in the national interest', in economic terms.

& this could bring them down!

Labour Matters

Two year old letters which refer to prisoner release and not compassionate grounds. I think the smoke is long since gone from that smoking gun!

A deal between the SNP in Hollyrood and Labour in London is what you're looking for. Good luck finding that.

Do you guys also believe in alien abduction; that Diana was assassinated; and that the moon is made of cheese too?

pete-s

Mandy said 'the accusation of doing deals over Megrahi was offensive'; or some similar rhetoric. I don't remember him at any point actually saying it was untrue.

Nicholas Newman

The Libyan question is much complicated than many in the media wish it to be. Europe including Britain is becoming more dependent on oil and gas imports, especially from Russian sources. Our interest in access to Libyan oil and gas is vital the future of our economy and political independence from Moscow. That is why Europe having to make deals with such countries as Libya, in order that we can improve our energy security. Not doing so is not an option!

john miller

Looks pretty straightforward to me.

Not spin, not evasiveness, just blatant lies by Brown and Mandleson to you and me.

Just as well we were being "offensive", eh Mandy?. It's so much more satisfying being offensive and right at the same time.

Golur

Yet again, the cover-up will do more harm than the crime. They could have admitted from the start that it was in the best interest of the UK to release this man - and they could have found plenty of reasons other than 'compassion' - it would all be over and done with. Instead, Mandleson is shown - again - to be a spinner above all else, Brown will avoid the problem by blaming (his fellow) Scots and UK is left looking foolish.

No change there, then, I'm afraid.

Moraymint

Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them (Solzhenitsyn).

With each new expose - which seem to be coming thick and fast these days - our politicos ratchet up the contempt in which the citizens of this country hold them.

One wonders which politician or political party is ever going to start the process of reforming politics in this country?

Geoff

Labour Matters not a jot.

Next.

Austin Barry

"The exploration deal for oil and gas, potentially worth up to £15 billion, was announced in May 2007."

Well, even an ethical foreign policy has its monetary limits, dear boy.

Bruce, UK

Mandelson is offensive.

Sasquatch

Labour Matters
Two year old letters which refer to prisoner release and not compassionate grounds. I think the smoke is long since gone from that smoking gun!"

On the contrary, the gun may have been loaded 2 years ago, but it was only fired when Al Megrahi was released. It shows the Govt to be full of liars. The deal was done 2 years ago. Neither the US Govt nor the British people were told of the deal.

They trade Al Megrahi for oil - and deny it!!!
The "compassionate grounds" is a smokescreen to cover their mendacity. Brown even had the nerve to claim that he was "angry" and "repulsed" - by a deal that was signed months ago by Jack Straw!!!

"Do you guys also believe in alien abduction; that Diana was assassinated; and that the moon is made of cheese too?"

No, but I think most of us believe that Brown, Mandelson and most of the rest of the Govt have lied though their back teeth about this (and just about everything else, as well).

I think that most of us also believe Brown to be a coward, who refuses to face awkward truths and, instead, runs and hides, just like he's doing at the moment in Afghanistan.

The Laughing Cavalier

Inevitably,sadly, this news comes as no surprise.

alex buchan

There is no collusion between the Scottish Government and the Labour British Government. But, having said that, exactly on what grounds was MacAskill expected turn down the Libyan Government's request for Prisoner Transfer, given that there was nothing in the legislation to exempt Scotland or Megrahi.

This was a quasi-judicial decision and had to be taken within the letter of the law. MacAskill's last hope in trying to stop prisoner transfer; that the agreement with the American's at the time of the original trail that Megrahi would see out any sentence in Scotland precluded such a move, was dashed by Ivan Lewis, the Foreign Office minister, who wrote saying there was no such impediment.

MacAskill's only recourse was to render the whole prisoner transfer process redundant by releasing Megrahi anyway, but the process by which he was forced to that decision explains why Megrahi couldn't be released to a hospice in Scotland. The minute the Prisoner Transfer Agreement was ratified by the British Parliament Megrahi was headed from Libya one way or another.

Sarge

Andy Leeds:
Mandelson did not say there was no link. He said suggesting there was one would be 'obscene' which is true. Lord
Slippery rarely utters public pronouncements without careful thought.

Should the obscenity be be proven,he can wriggle out by saying he did not deny it and shares our disgust.

Malfleur

@ Nicholas Newman 11:52am.

Agreed , up to a point. I have however already expressed an opinion in other threads that an alternative, not covered by Mr. Newman, is for great Britain, or the USA, to annex Libya and secure its supply of oil in that way, not to mention a useful place d'armes in the fraught Midle East - with generous provision to its tiny 5.7 million population, of course.

No one has debated this, though Hysteria suggested that I was on another planet.

De Bono has analysed Western thinking as too obsessed with proving other people wrong and oneself right. Malfleur therefore wears his green hat in the hope that some will engage with the idea even while considering it unfeasible in practice. So far, however, no one with sufficient freedom of thought to imagine possiblities? - and we wonder why PC has gained such a foothold in our country. We are the same country as in 1800, but so different!

Meanwhile, our enemies are perfectly capable of imaging and acting on a vision of business deals for terrorists.We have to start being as "bad-ass" as they are in pursuit of freedom and liberty.

Verity

I won't add to the general repugnance here, but I like Malfleur's suggestion of annexing Libya. (As long as we didn't try to soften the aggression by giving Libyans right of abode in the UK.)

Another plus is, it would give Barry Obama a huge problem.

anne allan

If the deal was done 2 yeas ago, had al-Magrahi been diagnosed with with prostate cancer at that stage?
If so, was it deliberately neglected so that he could become a terminal case and therefore provide a convenient excuse to let him go?
Or, is he merely ageing and Britain needs the gas/oil and Libya need the money?
Or, was it just happenstance - any ailment would have done; touch of arthritis, a dose of man-flu, a dodgy halal burger........?

Hysteria

So - just to make a coment on the "oil for Magrehi" issue.

Oil is a world traded commodity - it is extremely unusual for a specific barrel from a field to arrive at a specific location after a trade. Indeed the cargoes are traded and change hands many times.

Typically you do not "buy" the oil from an oil field.

The BP deal, as reported (and ok - this might not be true) is an exploration deal. This will bring jobs and value to BP, and might lead to an increase in supply of Libyan crude - but that does not mean it will arrive at Fawley.

As to gas - there is no gas pipeline from Libya into the grid, and I am not aware of any LNG projects in Libya (although there might be) - so again this "deal" will be of general interest to UK plc in that it helps one of our najor countries, but it will not lead to Libyan oil arriving on our shores any time soon.

James McLaren

So, just how did the SNP acquiesce with the Blair-BP-Straw-Mandelson transfer Magrahi plot.

I cannot believe that the SNP would just roll over and allow the above suspects to tickle their collective tummy.

So while everyone is looking over the Mediterranean for the dirty deal why is no one looking over the Tweed.

What would make the SNP be on message.

Incidentally, does anyone agree with me that the "outrage" was craftily faux?

Has anyone read the copy of the letter from Mueller of the FBI and MacAskill and wonder how someone heading up such an agency could get two very basic and fundamental facts wrong and Megrahi's trial. Did someone draft it for him for internal consumption?

This one has a lot of unravelling to do to the detriment of all, except Kenny MacAskill I think.

porkbelly

If this deal was indeed made two years ago then one must presume it was kept secret from the American government (just imagine Cheney's reaction to a release!) until Bush had departed the scene. Now that the golden reign of Emperor Bokassa Obama has begun little things like defending against terrorism have receded greatly in importance, although of course the fiction of "outrage" and "disgust" must be upheld for as briefly as is decently possible. We may be sure Iran, N. Korea, Russia and every other practitioner of terror as an instrument of state policy is watching closely.

JH

Sorry if I'm being naive, but why would the Libyans be so anxious for the return of Megrahi anyway? Why would they give a toss whether some terrorist scumbag or another lives out his last days in a foreign prison? So what? What's the big deal? Is it really worth worsening the newly improved relations with the west over?

strapworld

Strange that Salmon announced this morning that they will be holding a referendum on Scottish Independence next year!

I wonder if the Lbour Party will support this???

I think they will come out in support of Independence! That being the deal.

john miller

JH I think you'll find that the chap is extraordinarily well connected...

Hysteria

typo correction - shoudl have concluded with

helps one of our major companies

(must use Firefox more.....!)

gbbgg

http://tinyurl.com/ktkdeb

Derek

@ JH

The New York Times noted yesterday that "At the time of the bombing, Mr. Megrahi was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, the state carrier. But an F.B.I. investigation concluded that his job was a cover for his work as an intelligence officer for the Libyan intelligence service, which Mr. Megrahi denied but which the court accepted in finding him guilty".

But in any event the Libyan government's position is that he is innocent.

cuffleyburgers

Why am I not surprised?

Alex massie - any comment?

Simples.

Mandela

All Libyans believe that Magrahi was innocent and sacrificed for the whole nation when he agreed to go to trial, a move that led to the lifting of an embargo which they suffered from for a decade. They also believe he got an unfair trial and the ruling was unjust.
This is shared by many of the relatives of the PanAm victims. And from this belief it is normal for many Libyans to welcome his return.
The real deal that we need to look into is pressing him to drop his appeal for a compassionate release. Something that would have covered all the foul play by the Americans, British and the Scottish justice system.