Hillarysworld

Today’s Sunday papers are filled with new revelations surrounding the complicity of Gordon Brown’s administration in the decision to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. The Sunday Telegraph reveals that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) gave Libya a “sweetener” of ₤146,000 in aid for “reforms” in its prison system while talks were taking place between London and Tripoli over Megrahi’s fate, as well as British investment in Libya’s oil sector.

The Sunday Telegraph also reports that British officials even negotiated with Mousa Kousa, a “terror mastermind” accused of planning the Lockerbie bombing, over Megrahi’s release. Meanwhile, The Sunday Times has revealed how Brown “personally vetoed an attempt to force Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to compensate IRA bomb victims because it might have jeopardised British oil deals with Libya.”

All this follows Justice Secretary Jack Straw’s admission last week to The Daily Telegraph that trade and oil deals with Libya were central to his decision to include Megrahi in any prison transfer deal with Libya.

There is now no doubt that the appalling release of a mass murdering terrorist was intricately linked to advancing broader British ties with the brutal regime of Colonel Gaddafi – almost certainly with the aim of securing lucrative oil contracts for British companies. This all makes a mockery of Gordon Brown’s blatantly false declaration in a Downing Street press conference that his government played no role whatsoever in the release of Megrahi. In Brown’s words:

“When I met Colonel Gaddafi over the summer, I made it absolutely clear to him that we had no role in making the decision about Megrahi’s future. Because it was a quasi-judicial matter, because it was a matter legislated for by the Scottish parliament and not by us, it was a matter over which we could not interfere and had no control over the final outcome.”

Any financial gain Britain may accrue as a result of appeasing Gaddafi will be dwarfed by its loss of standing on the world stage, especially with its closest ally the United States. Brown and his ministers may argue that they were defending Britain’s economic interests, but the long-term damage to Britain’s reputation will take decades to repair.

Whatever the economic fruits from the UK’s new friendship with the Libyans, it will always be overshadowed by an abject surrender to terrorism and those who sponsor it. The far more important Special Relationship with America has been callously cast aside by the Labour government, and won’t be restored until there is a change of leadership in London.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100008616/the-lockerbie-bomber-scandal-gordon-brown-has-sold-britain%e2%80%99s-reputation-for-thirty-pieces-of-silver/