Lockerbie bomber documents to be published
A dossier of official documents shedding light on the release of the Lockerbie bomber will be published today.
Disclosures from the eagerly-anticipated publication may throw up new questions for Britain's former Labour government and Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.
Mr MacAskill sanctioned the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August 2009, because he was supposed to have little time left to live. Al-Megrahi is still alive in Tripoli.
Today’s publication follows Prime Minister David Cameron’s promise to US president Barack Obama that he would review the paperwork in the case.
Mr Cameron asked Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, to conduct the review and ensure that everything that could be made public was.
The tranche of letters, memos and minutes to be released today is described as “comprehensive”.
Mr Cameron discussed Libya with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton when they met at a security conference in Munich on Saturday. A Downing Street spokeswoman said they had “strongly agreed that the release of the Lockerbie bomber had been a mistake”.
It was reported last week that Libya had been given advice by a then Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell on how to secure al-Megrahi’s release.
Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground.
