Lockerbie hearing scheduled for Wednesday

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to hold a hearing this week over last year's controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber two months after a similar hearing was canceled.

One of the leading senators to press for a probe of the release of Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi, Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), will preside over the hearing on Wednesday morning. But absent the list of scheduled witnesses are many key figures who declined to attend a planned hearing in July that was canceled because of what Menendez called stonewalling by British and Scottish officials. 

Scheduled to testify on Wednesday are Nancy McEldowney, a State Department official who deals with European affairs and Bruce Swartz, who is a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's criminal division. Dr. James Mohler, a top urologist at a Buffalo, N.Y. cancer center will also appear before the panel.

Megrahi, who was given a life sentence in 1988, was released from Scottish prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds since he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Lawmakers and President Obama have expressed frustration over the Scottish government's decision. 

In July, Menendez sought the testimony of key figures such as Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who freed al-Megrahi and former U.K. Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

They also requested that BP CEO Tony Hayward attend the hearing over suspicions that the company lobbied for Megrahi's release in order to secure oil leases in Libya, the bomber's country of origin. 

Menendez said in July that the foreign relations panel would shift its focus to a "longer-term multidimensional inquiry" into al-Megrahi's release, according to the Associated Press.

The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland killed all 259 passengers on board, most of whom were Americans.