Report: Lockerbie bomber's release was motivated by oil deal

The decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi from a Scottish prison last year was motivated in part by a desire to preserve an oil exploration agreement between the Libyan government and BP, four Senate Democrats alleged in a report released Tuesday.

The report says the government of the United Kingdom pressured the Scottish government to release al-Megrahi over concerns that a $900 million oil exploration agreement with Libya could be compromised.

“The threat of commercial warfare was a motivating factor. The U.K. knew that in order to maintain trade relations with Libya, it had to give into political demands. Faced with the threat of losing the lucrative BP oil deal and other commercial ties, the U.K. agreed to include al-Megrahi’s release in a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) with Libya,” the report said.

The document is the result of a five-month investigation into the prisoner release by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.J.).

A spokesperson for the Scottish government told The Telegraph the report was inaccurate. 

"This is not an official report of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — it is an incorrect and inaccurate rehash by four senators of material that has been in the public domain for many months, and we entirely reject their false interpretation," the spokesperson told the British newspaper.

The report was released on the 22-year anniversary of the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of masterminding the bombing, which killed 270 people, 189 of which were Americans. He was released from prison in 2009 after Scottish doctors said he would live no more than three months. Al-Megrahi went back to Libya, where he remains to this day.

The report says the medical diagnosis on which al-Megrahi’s release was based “was inaccurate and unsupported by medical science.”

Menendez invited officials from BP, as well as the Scottish and U.K. governments to testify at a hearing in September on al-Megrahi’s release. All the officials declined the invitation.

A BP spokesman directed The Hill to the company's August 2010 response to the senators' questions about al-Megrahi's release. "To be clear, the decision to release Mr. Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds was made by the Scottish Executive alone, without any involvement by BP and without any communications from BP seeking the release of Mr. al-Megrahi," the company said.

This post was updated at 5:10 p.m.