The Scottish government's decision to release the only person convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 was made because the United Kingdom is busy trying to secure oil deposits in Libya, several UK newspapers reported Sunday.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland earlier this month on grounds of compassion. The former Libyan agent is dying of pancreatic cancer. He arrived in Libya to a hero's welcome after his release, raising the ire of the American families of the Pan Am bombing's victims.
The UK's Sunday Observer says it has obtained documents showing "ministers and senior civil servants met [with British-Dutch oil giant] Shell to discuss the company's oil interests in Libya on at least 11 occasions and perhaps as many as 26 times in less than four years."
The revelations "lend weight to claims that commercial interest lay behind last week's decision to release the Lockerbie bomber," the paper writes.
The Observer quotes Mika Minio-Paluello, an activist with the human rights group Platform, who says: "These documents show the deep and long-term foreign policy backing provided by the British government to Shell in its efforts to break into Libya. Corporate executives have easy access to the highest level of Whitehall, while democracy advocates and social movements remain shut out on the street."
Read on.
No comments:
Post a Comment