Britain’s controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber was tied to an arms-export deal, according to a secret e-mail obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.
Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi met with Tony Blair in 2007 and agreed to buy a $600million air-defense system, according to the e-mail, sent by an ambassador in Tripoli in 2008.
The two then agreed to a prison-transfer agreement, which Libyans hoped would lead to the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. He was convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 — en route from London to JFK — over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.
When Blair returned to Libya in 2008 after he had stepped down as prime minister, Britain was on the brink of an economic crisis — and the e-mail suggests Blair came as a conduit to seal the previous deal, according to the Telegraph.
The e-mail, written by Tripoli ambassador Sir Vincent Fean to brief Blair, urges him to raise the issue that the prison transfer pact will be signed once Libya fulfills the arm deal.
Megrahi was released in August 2009 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and given three months to live. He died in 2012.
“We were told Megrahi’s release was a matter strictly for the Scottish government but this shows the dirty dealing that was going on behind the scenes,” Pam Dix, who lost her brother in the bombing, was quoted telling the Telegraph.