Straw refuses to release notes on talks with BP executive over Libya

Published on Saturday 30 January 2010 19:09

JACK Straw is refusing to release notes of a conversation with a senior oil executive who lobbied him over Britain's relations with Libya just weeks before he allowed the Lockerbie bomber to apply for a return home.

The Justice Secretary took two calls in late 2007 from former MI6 agent Sir Mark Allan, who was then working for BP.

The oil giant that year signed a $900 million oil exploration deal with Libya but feared it could be damaged if Britain failed to secure a prisoner transfer agreement allowing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to apply to return home.

Straw is side-stepping demands under Freedom of Information laws to make the notes of the conversations public. He insists there was never any deal with the Libyans to offer oil deals to British firms in return for progress on Megrahi's release.

But opponents claim that until he releases the details of the conversation, suspicions will remain that oil was put before Lockerbie victims.

Megrahi returned to Libya last August, freed by the Scottish Government on compassionate grounds as he has terminal cancer.

The row dates back two and half years, to when the UK government was hoping to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Libya. Part of that deal was a prisoner transfer agreement which would allow Libyan prisoners in the UK to serve their terms in Libyan jails.

First Minister Alex Salmond met Straw in summer 2007 to ask that Megrahi be excluded from such an agreement. In December 2007, Straw said he could not agree to the request. It has since emerged he spoke to Allan on 15 October and 9 November 2007.