Report: BP did not pressure Scottish government to release Lockerbie bomber

Neither BP nor the U.K. government put pressure on the Scottish government to release the man convicted of masterminding a 1988 airplane bombing that killed 270 people, a new report says.

Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi was convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Al-Megrahi was released from jail in 2009 by the Scottish government because he was expected to soon die of cancer. He returned to Libya, where he continues to live.

U.S. lawmakers and others have alleged that the British government and BP pressured the Scottish government to release Al-Megrahi in part because the oil company was negotiating a $900 million oil exploration deal with Libya.

Here’s more on the report, which was authored by British Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell, from Bloomberg:

“After reviewing paperwork on the release, O’Donnell concluded that while both the U.K. and BP wanted Al-Megrahi sent home so that oil deals with Libya could go ahead, neither put pressure on the Scottish government.”