Salmond: 'I'll meet Megrahi committee - in Scotland

ALEX Salmond is willing to meet members of the US Senate committee investigating the release of the Lockerbie bomber if they come to Scotland.

The committee is ready to send members to the UK to question British witnesses on the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

Senator Robert Menendez revealed the plan after British politicians including former justice secretary Jack Straw, Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond turned down requests to attend a hearing of the Senate foreign affairs committee hearing in Washington.

Mr Salmond said he was happy to offer a visiting US senator "the courtesy" of a meeting. But he said there was "no way on Earth" that Scottish ministers would formally give evidence to a committee hearing of a foreign legislature, even if it is held in the UK.

Mr Menendez has been one of the most vocal US politicians calling for an inquiry into the decision to free Megrahi, who returned to a hero's welcome in Libya last year and has now long outlived the three months which he was given to survive terminal cancer when he left Greenock Prison in Scotland.

Mr Menendez accused the British politicians who failed to attend this week's hearing of lacking "courage" and "stonewalling".

He said the committee also wanted to talk to outgoing BP chief executive Tony Hayward about what role the company played in lobbying for a prisoner transfer agreement at a time when it was negotiating a multi-million pound oil deal with Libya.

Mr Salmond said: "We have answered all questions that Senator Menendez has sent to us, with the sole exception of his request to release American government documents which we can't release because the American government hasn't given us permission."