British, Libyan leaders spoke of bomber’s release weeks ago

Suspicions that the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber had more to do with politics than with compassion grew Sunday with the disclosure that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi discussed the release in a face-to-face meeting six weeks earlier.

The two leaders met on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy, in early July. At that meeting, Mr. Brown said, “I stressed that, should the Scottish executive decide that Megrahi can return to Libya, this should be a purely private family occasion” and not a public celebration.

The disclosure that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi’s release was in the works long before Thursday’s decision by a Scottish court to set him free belied repeated claims by Mr. Brown’s government over the weekend that there was no behind-the-scenes deal between the two governments.

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On Thursday, al-Megrahi walked out of a Scottish prison after serving eight years of a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people just days before Christmas.

Al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted in the attack, promptly boarded a jet and flew to Tripoli, where he was greeted by cheering crowds that included Col. Gadhafi’s son before he was whisked away in an all-white motorcade.

The release was condemned by President Obama, members of Congress and family of those killed in the attack, some of whom said they were sickened by his release and the celebration that followed.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, elevated the criticism from moral indignation to politics Sunday on the television talk show circuit.

“Well, this is obviously a political decision, which is out of my lane. But I mean, just personally, I was appalled by the decision,” Adm. Mullen said on CNN.

U.S. and Scottish law enforcement officials indicted al-Megrahi and Amin Khalifa Fhimah on Nov. 14, 1991. They were the only two ever to be charged in the bombing. Mr. Fhimah was acquitted in January, 2001.

However, U.S. authorities have long suspected that many more terrorists were involved in the incident and kept the case open.

Despite Libya’s decision in 2003 to accept responsibility and pay restitution to the relatives of victims, U.S. officials have not closed the case.

“There remains an open indictment in D.C. and an open investigation,” Richard Kolko, spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, told The Washington Times on Sunday.

Another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the political situation, said al-Megrahi still faces an indictment of nearly 200 counts in the United States.

The dead included 189 Americans, many on their way home from schools in Europe to spend the Christmas holiday season with their families.

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