Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has categorically dismissed claims he engineered a deal over the Lockerbie bomber’s release.
A new book claims Abdelbasset al-Megrahi the only man convicted of the atrocity agreed to drop his appeal in exchange for compassionate release.
But in a direct rebuttal, Mr MacAskill told the Scottish Parliament: ”These claims are wrong.”
The allegations are in the newly-published biography, Megrahi: You Are My Jury, by TV producer John Ashton. In the book, Megrahi claims he was told it would be easier for him to get early release from prison if he dropped the appeal.
He says a member of the Gaddafi regime, Abdulati al-Obedi, passed on the message after an off-the-record meeting with Mr MacAskill. But the book records that Megrahi began moves to abandon his appeal in March 2009 months before he applied for release.
Dismissing the claims on Wednesday, Mr MacAskill pointed to civil service records of his meetings with Libyan officials.
”Unlike the claims of recent days, these minutes are not hearsay but an accurate record made at the time,” he said. ”Let me be quite clear at no time did I or any other member of the Scottish Government suggest to Mr Al-Obeidi, to anyone connected with the Libyan Government, or indeed to Mr Al-Megrahi himself, that abandoning his appeal against conviction would in any way aid or affect his application for compassionate release.”
Mr MacAskill stressed that the decision to release Megrahi on health grounds could go ahead without dropping the appeal.
He said: ”I granted a request for compassionate release submitted by him as I believed it adhered to the laws and values we hold in Scotland.”
He insisted: ”The Scottish Government had no interest whatsoever in Mr Al-Megrahi’s appeal being abandoned. I had no involvement in Mr Al-Megrahi’s decision to drop his appeal against conviction that was entirely a matter for him and his legal team.”
The Scottish Government has published new legislation making it possible to publish documents relating to Megrahi’s appeal for the first time. But many of the papers are sealed under Data Protection laws, which are the responsibility of Westminster.
Mr MacAskill has again written to UK Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, asking for a change in the rules.
But Tory Justice spokesman David McLetchie said Megrahi has enjoyed 932 days of freedom when he was predicted to live just 90 days.
He said: ”There is still suspicion that the Justice Minister took an unduly favourable view on the medical evidence to facilitate this deal. If Kenny MacAskill wants to prove that releasing Britain’s worst mass murderer was the right call, he should release all the medical evidence on which it is based.”
Photo by David Cheskin/PA Wire