We need the truth about bomber's release

PURSUANT to the pertinent letter from Steuart Campbell (28 July), Alex Salmond and his justice secretary should travel to Washington to blurt out the unpalatable truth; namely that their decision to release Mr Megrahi had nothing whatsoever to do with BP, compassion or legal precedent.

It had everything to do with avoiding an appeal which would have revealed the delaying and disgraceful behaviour of the Crown Office over 21 years, the "inexplicable" (the UN observer's word) decision by the judges at Zeist and the shortcomings in Mr Megrahi's original defence, not to mention the involvement of the American government in scapegoating Libya, for the crime that was carried out by Jibril, Abu Talb and the PLFGC.

The Americans should now be told that the motive for Mr Megrahi's release was the avoidance of the humiliation of Scottish justice in the eyes of the world.

TAM DALYELL

House of the Binns

Linlithgow

When Senator Menendez reconvenes his "inquiry" into the release of the Mr Megrahi perhaps the first witness he should call should be ex-president George Bush snr.

He could ask him why he and Margaret Thatcher stonewalled on a public inquiry into Lockerbie in 1990.

He could also ask him why, when the evidence pointed not to Libya being the perpetrators but to a Palestinian organisation, the PFLP, who were Syrian proxies who had been paid by Iran to blow up an American airliner in direct revenge for the downing of an Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes.

He could call ex-Aparthied South African foreign minister Pik Botha and ask him why he and five other South African government officials cancelled their seats on flight 103 at the last minute. Were they privy to some information which was not subject to public release?

Senator Menendez could ask Mr Bush what event led the search away from Syria and Iran and on to Libya.

The answer I suspect would be former American ally Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. America needed the support of both these countries to help in ousting Saddam from Kuwait and protect the oil supplies in the Middle-East.

The quid pro quo would be that their names would be quietly dropped from the Lockerbie investigation.

Libya, then a pariah state, was chosen simply for public consumption and the Scottish legal establishment conspired with the US/UK governments to send an innocent man to prison.

Geo-politics and strategic interests were more important to the US/UK governments than revealing the truth about what really happened on Pan Am flight 103.

ALAN HINNRICHS

Noran Ave

Dundee