Case grows for full inquiry into Megrahi’s release

The case for a full public inquiry into the Scottish government's decision to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi from jail a year ago is becoming irresistible. Not on Capitol Hill, but here in Britain.

The inquiry needs to examine two issues concerning his early release: why was Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill wrongly advised that Megrahi had only three months to live - he's still alive today - and did commercial pressure from BP or Libya have any influence on MacAskill's decision?

The increasingly poisonous atmosphere between Washington and Edinburgh - and Westminster - looks unlikely to dissipate until this is addressed, in public, once and for all.

As Scotland's Herald newspaper said in an editorial today: "It is clear that the longer Megrahi survives, the more problematic it becomes to defend a release on compassionate grounds and the easier it becomes for critics of the decision, particularly in America, to suggest there were other factors at play, most notably the trading interests of BP."

Those critics in America are led by Senator Robert Menendez, who, like a dog with a bone, has not been put off by the refusal of politicians from London and Edinburgh to attend the recently planned hearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In the past few days, Menendez has asked the Scots to release all relevant medical documents. And in a brusque letter, signed by three other senators representing New York and New Jersey, where many of the American victims of the Lockerbie bombings lived, he has now demanded more information from Foreign Secretary William Hague to help clear up the "public pall" over Megrahi's release.

In short, Menendez appears to have given up any attempt to be diplomatic in his requests. This has led to the leader of Roman Catholic Church in Scotland entering the debate, attacking America's culture of "vengeance and retribution".

In an article for Scotland on Sunday, Cardinal Keith O'Brien said that despite the "gratuitous barbarity" of the PanAm jetliner bombing over Lockerbie in 1988, which resulted in 270 people losing their lives, Scottish ministers were right "to affirm our own humanity" by releasing Megrahi last August on compassionate grounds.

O'Brien said he was glad to live in a country where "justice is tempered with mercy." He made the point that 1,226 people had been executed in the US since 1976, adding: "Perhaps the consciences of some Americans, especially members of the US Senate, should be stirred by the ways in which 'justice'
is administered in so many of their own states."

The Cardinal makes a fair point. But there is a twist in the story that suggests a full inquiry is the only way out of this impasse.

MacAskill based his decision to release Megrahi early on evidence compiled for him by Dr Andrew Fraser, director of health and care for the Scottish Prison Service. Fraser, in turn, questioned various medical professionals involved in Megrahi's care at the Greenock prison hospital. They apparently agreed his condition was terminal and deteriorating.

But just how clear and wise was that medical evidence? Did Fraser ask the right people?

A report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that not one of the four specialists who treated Megrahi's prostate cancer - two urologists and two oncologists - agreed with the three-month prognosis. People described by the WSJ as being "familiar with the matter" said the two urologists weren't even consulted about the Fraser report.

Instead, the report appeared to have relied heavily on the observations of a primary care doctor who was neither a cancer nor urology specialist.

Furthermore, the Fraser report included nothing about Megrahi's own admission that if he were to be released, he expected to begin a course of chemotherapy.

Yet it is known that MacAskill was aware of the chemotherapy plan because when the Justice Secretary went into Greenock jail on August 6 to meet the convicted bomber face-to-face, Megrahi told him that a key reason why he needed his family around him was because he expected to face the ordeal of chemotherapy.

The fact that chemotherapy came up at all should have raised "a red flag", as the WSJ put it, because no specialist would suggest chemotherapy for someone three months from death. Indeed, looking at it from the other side of the argument, the median life expectancy from the start of chemotherapy is 19.2 months, not three months, according to a 2008 study.

Another issue raised by the WSJ report is the constant pressure on the Scottish government from the Libyan officials who were monitoring Megrahi's health. According to the minutes of a meeting seen by the WSJ, a Libyan foreign ministry official, Abdul Ati Al-Obeidi, warned on one occasion that if Megrahi died in prison, it would be a "major problem", detrimental to UK-Libyan relations.

This ties with with a comment made by the then Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a Commons statement last October. He said British interests "would be damaged, perhaps badly, if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison rather than Libya".

A coincidence Senator Menendez is unlikely to miss. ·