Fears over the whereabouts of Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi have been put to rest after staff from East Renfrewshire Council were able to contact him today at his home in Tripoli, Sky News reports.
Local authority staff had been concerned after attempts to contact the terminally ill Libyan failed yesterday. There were also reports that mystery surrounded the bomber’s whereabouts after he could not be contacted either at his home or in hospital.
Criminal justice …

Mystery surrounded the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi last night after he could not be reached at his home or in hospital, The Times reports.
Libyan officials could say nothing about the whereabouts of al-Megrahi, and his Scottish monitors could not contact him by telephone. They will try again to speak to him today but if they fail to reach him, the Scottish Government could face a new crisis.
Under the terms of his release from …

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson had recently socialised at a shoot with the son of Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi attended the event at a stately home in Buckinghamshire, along with the financier Nat Rothschild, who is a friend of Lord Mandelson.
The extent of Government relations with Libya were exposed when, to widespread condemnation from victims’ families and President Barack Obama, the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi was released in …

Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds and was said to have only three months to live, has been released from a Libyan hospital and according to this family, is not close to death.

The 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent and his family now say that, while weak and terminally ill, he is not close to death, and continues to work on clearing his…

A detective who headed the original Lockerbie investigation revealed that eight other potential suspects in the bombing were identified at the time, but they were never interviewed, The Times reports.
Stuart Henderson, a former detective chief superintendent with Lothian and Borders Police, led the Lockerbie Incident Control Centre from 1988 until 1992. “We submitted eight other names of people that we wished to interview that were strong suspects,” he said. “Unfortunately, we never got that opportunity. …

Despite some reports that the Libyan terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi had died, his Scottish lawyer and also his family insisted that the Lockerbie bomber is still alive and well.
Sky News reported this afternoon that there are reports that al-Megrahi has died. However, his Scottish lawyer Tony Kelly told Reuters that this report is “absolutely untrue”.
Also the terrorist’s family have denied that he had died and insisted that he is doing fine.
Al-Megrahi’s brother Abdul Hakim al-Megrahi told …

Libyan doctors are to be trained by the NHS following an agreement signed by a Cabinet minister with Muammar Gaddafi’s regime weeks before the release of the Lockerbie bomber, the Daily Mail reports.
The Department of Health dismissed as “nonsense” suggestions that the agreement had any link with the recent release of Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi or trade deals with the oil-rich regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
Under a memorandum of understanding signed by former Health …

Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered a humiliating rebuke from US President Barack Obama over the release of the Lockerbie bomber, the Daily Mail reports.
Obama condemned the controversial decision to free terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi in a 40-minute telephone call to Brown.
The White House’s decision to disclose the remarks was an embarrassing blow for Brown. Only minutes earlier Downing Street officials had issued a statement which failed to mention that Obama had voiced dismay at the …

Ministers approved the sale of a water cannon and other riot equipment to Libya amid the negotiations over the release of the Lockerbie bomber, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The export of £5m of equipment by British firms was approved by the Foreign Office in 2007, while talks between London and Tripoli over the release of Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi were under way.
Negotiations over a multi-billion pound oil deal were also taking place between Libya and BP …

The British, Scottish and Libyan governments connived to free Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds The Sunday Telegraph reports.

Medical evidence that helped al-Megrahi, 57, to be released was paid for by the Libyan government, which encouraged three doctors to say he had only three months to live.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw has admitted for the first time that trade and oil deals with Libya played “a very big part” in the handling of the Lockerbie terrorist’s case, the Daily Mail reports.
Straw said that trade was a major influence on his decision to include Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya signed two years ago, just as BP was seeking a multi-billion pound deal there. The admission casts grave doubt …

The senior FBI agent in the case of the Lockerbie bombing told The Jerusalem Post that he believes Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi must have personally sanctioned the atrocity.
Richard Marquise, a 31-year FBI veteran who led the US task force probing the December 1988 blast which destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, with the loss of 270 lives, said it was unthinkable in a regime such as Libya for that kind of major terrorist …

Justice Secretary Jack Straw was personally lobbied by the oil giant BP over Britain’s prisoner transfer agreement with Libya just before he abandoned efforts to exclude the Lockerbie bomber from the deal, The Times reports.

Staw took two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 agent, who was by then working for BP as a consultant, on 15th October and 9th November, 2007.

New York Daily News heavily criticises Prime Minister Gordon Brown in today’s editorial, calling him a betrayer in the headline over the release of the Lockerbie terrorists Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

“It is Gordon Brown who has given grounds to believe that today’s British are a cowardly, unprincipled, amoral and duplicitous lot. Because he is all of those,” the newspaper writes in its editorial.

The Scottish Government were defeated tonight in a Holyrood vote on the Lockerbie affair, opposition parties defeated the SNP in a series of votes on the decision by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi from prison on compassionate grounds, The Scotsman reports.
SNP ministers had asked the Parliament to endorse MacAskill’s decision as “consistent with the principles of Scottish justice”.
A series of four votes saw the Scottish Government defeated by 73 votes …

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he “respected” the decision to release the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and claimed there was “no conspiracy, no cover up”.

Brown denied allegations that Britain intervened over the release of al-Megrahi in order to further British business interests with oil-rich Libya, The Times reports.