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…

Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi apologised for the first time for the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher who was shot outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984, The Times reports.
However he claimed that the young police woman’s killer had never been identified. WPC Fletcher was shot in the back with a burst of automatic gunfire that came from inside the embassy as she policed a peaceful demonstration outside in St James Square on 17th April, …

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. …

The Government is under pressure to explain why police have failed to charge two Libyan men in connection with the killing of WPc Yvonne Fletcher, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were told by an independent prosecutor more than two years ago that they had sufficient evidence to charge two Libyans over the killing of WPc Yvonne Fletcher. Yet the information has not been acted upon and two suspects named in a …

Britain offered to pay Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi £14m in return for Libya ending its military support for the IRA, The Independent reports.
The deal, worth £500m today, was part of a package of compensation measures to appease the Libyan leader and help open up trade with the North African state during the late 1970s.
Discovery of the secret offer, detailed in a letter sent by the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson (Labour), raises fresh questions about …

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 …

Special forces have been training Libyan soldiers under a Government deal with Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi, despite his regime having funded many of the IRA’s worst attacks, The Times discloses.
SAS soldiers said there was a “weary rolling of the eyes” when they learnt that they would be passing on some of their skills to members of the Libyan infantry.
In the 1980s and 1990s Libya supplied the IRA with Semtex used in at least ten attacks, …

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 …

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.

Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday became the first senior Labour figure to oppose the decision to release the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
Smith, who stood down in June, said that the decision did not “feel right”, adding that although she had not seen all the documentation, the bomber had been able to return home “in a way in which his victims were not”, The Times reports.
“Of course we have to be compassionate with …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband today confirmed the Government did not want the Lockerbie terrorist to die in jail as Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced fresh questions about the convicted terrorist’s release, the Daily Mail reports.
Miliband backed up an account of a meeting with Libya by a British minister, revealed in official documents published yesterday in a bid to dispel the row over Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s release.
The documents said Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell had …