Barely a week ago Lord Mandelson pompously declared that it was ‘completely implausible’ and ‘offensive’ to suggest the Government had connived in the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, for commercial reasons.
Now leaked letters show that this is precisely what the Government did. It moved heaven and earth to secure the release of Megrahi from a Scottish jail, seemingly to facilitate a multi-billion-pound deal between Libya and BP that might otherwise have been in jeopardy.
And then it watched smugly and silently while the Scottish Nationalist government in Edinburgh took the flak for freeing the terrorist. President Obama, the head of the FBI, and relatives of his victims have united in outrage and protest, and there have been wild threats of sanctions against Scotland.
Even by the often duplicitous and deceitful standards of New Labour over the past 12 years, this has been an incredible performance. Megrahi was tried and convicted of the murder of 270 people, who died when the exploded Pan Am aircraft plunged to earth in December 1988.
It is shameful that the Government should have ever contemplated freeing him, and disgraceful that it should have then lied to cover up its role.
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