The end game: The fate of Lockerbie bomber

OF ALL the numbers in the contacts book of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, it is fair to assume that up until last week that of one time Tartan Army regular and reformed fitness freak Kenny MacAskill was not among them.

In his short reign as justice secretary in the SNP Government, MacAskill has never been shy of courting controversy, most notably by threatening the drinks industry with a series of draconian restrictions on alcohol sales. But when the world's best known female politician came on the line on Friday afternoon, asking to know what exactly he was up to, MacAskill might well have been excused for reaching for a nip of the strong stuff himself.

Elsewhere in the Scottish Government offices on Friday it was business as usual – ministers were launching a consultation into the problem of high hedges. But in MacAskill's office and that of First Minister Alex Salmond, a genuine geopolitical dilemma of the very first degree was emerging. Less than 48 hours earlier, the BBC had reported that MacAskill had decided to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, convicted in 2001 of the killings of 270 people who died after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the skies of southern Scotland. Not known for taking "flyers", the BBC report was treated as fact, despite the insistence of MacAskill and the entire Scottish Government that, in fact, no decision had yet been taken.

On Friday lunchtime, Megrahi's lawyers announced that an appeal against his conviction was being dropped. Charges of a cover-up emerged immediately. On both sides of the Atlantic, total confusion reigned. In Washington, lawyer Frank Duggan, who represents the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 group, received a call from Edinburgh to inform him that, yes, Megrahi's appeal was not going ahead but no, a decision on his release had not yet been made. After the call, Duggan declared it "inconceivable" that MacAskill – whom he had talked to a few weeks earlier – was preparing to release the bomber. And yet, in Edinburgh, there was barely anybody to support his view. Before the end of this month, the Scottish Government will announce its decision. This weekend, the age-old question of politics is being asked: cock-up or conspiracy? If MacAskill has agreed to Megrahi's release, why? And, furthermore, why did it emerge in the bizarre way it did last week?

It was last October that confirmation came through that Megrahi, who is serving out his life sentence in a specially built cell in Greenock prison, had advanced prostate cancer. Three months earlier, the Criminal Cases Review C