U.K. officials greased Lockerbie bomber's release

U.K. officials greased Lockerbie bomber's release, report finds
Facing 'commercial warfare' by Libya, Brits pressured Scots to free 'unrepentant terrorist'

The report finds that senior officials under former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown quietly and repeatedly pressured Scottish authorities to release Abdel Baset Ali al-al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the bombing.

They did so in order to protect British business interests in Libya, including a $900 million BP oil deal that the Libyans had threatened to cut off, as well as a $165 million arms sale with a British defense firm that was signed the same month al-Megrahi was freed from prison, the report states.

“This was a case in which commercial and economic considerations trumped the message of our global fight against terrorism,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., one of the four senators who commissioned the report by a Senate investigator.

The report also concludes that, in releasing Megrahi last year on the grounds that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and had only three months to live, Scottish authorities relied on a "false" and "flawed" medical prognosis that was possibly influenced by a doctor hired by the Libyan government. (Although there were recent reports that Megrahi was in a coma, that account has been disputed. As the Senate report notes, he remains alive, reportedly living in a luxury villa in Tripoli.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40760074/ns ... -security/

Well, there you have it...Once again, profits trump law-enforcement and the legal system. We wouldn't want a convicted terrorist to get in the way of a $900 million BP oil deal, or a $165 million arms sale... To heck with all those dead people...They can't get in the way of corporate profits....

And Obama first condemmed the deal and then signed off on it.

I won... I bet that the first post would somehow try to drag Obama into it...when the point of the fact is that Obama had NOTHING to do with it one way or another... Yes, he condemned it... Whether he "signed off on it" or not was irrelevant.

Thanks for coming through for me. I realize you just can't help yourself.

And Labour in the UK signed off on the deal. Looks like the Dems and Brit Dems are corporate lackeys, right?

Funny, but Dems are not particularly known for caving to the corporate-profits side of things...

Nice try though...

I also noticed that only one "conservative" replied to the post. Hmmmm, just can't take it when capitalism trumps law and order and the fight against terrorism.

LadyJazzer wrote: Funny, but Dems are not particularly known for caving to the corporate-profits side of things...

Nice try though...

Just because you think they aren't known for for caving to corporate profits doesn't make it so. GE and Goldman Sachs gave Obama a lot of money and fared very when other companies were sinking in Obama's Great Recession.

Even Obamacare's restaurant nutrition guidelines are written in a way that benefits large corporate chain restaurants at the expense of small local chains. (You will have to have all your menu choices tested for calories, fat, etc, much less costly for a national chain than a small family operation, face it, corporations are helping to write legislation.)