US officials warned Scotland over release of Lockerbie bomber; feared Libyan reception
By APMonday, July 26, 2010
US officials warned Scotland over al-Megrahi
LONDON — A newly released letter shows that worried U.S. officials warned Scottish authorities that scenes of jubilation in Tripoli over the release of the Lockerbie bomber would be damaging, and asked that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi not be allowed to leave Scotland.
A 2009 letter from Richard LeBaron, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in London, to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond was released Monday.
It sets out American opposition to the release. It says even release on compassionate grounds because of al-Megrahi’s cancer diagnosis would be more “severely undercut the longer he is free before his actual death.”
Al-Megrahi was released by Scottish authorities last August. He returned to Libya where he is receiving treatment for terminal prostate cancer.
