With each passing day, it becomes harder and harder to believe that Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was sprung from a Scottish prison for “compassionate” reasons, as Scottish officials insist.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that specialists who treated Megrahi’s cancer never certified he had only three months to live, as claimed. They were never even consulted by the doctor who certified his condition — and whose conclusion apparently was based on just a one-week relapse.
Officials also “missed” Megrahi’s admission at the time that he was about to begin chemotherapy — noteworthy because a three-month prognosis would only be made if such treatment failed.
Megrahi, of course, remains very much alive in Moammar Khadafy’s Libya — where he was welcomed home as a conquering hero, rather than a mass murderer responsible for 270 deaths.
It also turns out that Libya pressed for Megrahi’s release — claiming doctors gave him just weeks to live — fully one year before he was set free in 2009. In fact, his doctors had said no such thing.
So why was he released?
Well, Libyan officials had warned their British counterparts that failure to free Megrahi — who was sentenced to a minimum of 27 years in 2001 for the 1988 bombing — would be a “major problem” in UK-Libyan relations.
Plus, oil giant BP was lobbying the Brits for a prisoner-transfer agreement with Tripoli, to help the company lock in a lucrative contract with Libya.
In short, this deal is rotten to the core.
US senators want Britain to release Megrahi’s full medical records to aid their probe into the affair. Failure to do so would leave an indelible stain on London — which has much to explain.