A group of United States senators, including Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), requested that British Petroleum suspend its oil drilling plans in Libya until a full investigation is completed regarding its involvement in the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the terrorist bombing of flight Pan Am 103, from prison last August.

 

Al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds in August after serving eight years of his life sentence because a doctor diagnosed him with terminal prostate cancer and only three months to live. The senators are now questioning whether BP encouraged the British government to release al-Megrahi in order to secure a $900 million offshore oil deal with Libya.

 

All 259 people on board Pan Am 103 and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, died in the attack. Thirty-five Syracuse University students were traveling home from semesters abroad in London and Florence, Italy.

 

Gillibrand, Schumer and Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) also sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton requesting the State Department to investigate BP’s involvement, after being denied their original request for further investigation by the British government, said Max Young, press secretary for Schumer.

 

‘As you may know, in 2007, BP and the Libyan government agreed upon a $900 million oil exploration deal, following two visits to Libya over the course of three years by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It was reported in September of last year that BP communicated to the British government concerns that possible delays in the release of al-Megrahi could throw the oil deal into jeopardy,’ the letter to Clinton said.

 

The senators originally sent a letter to the British Ambassador to the United States, Nigel Sheinwald, requesting further investigation into al-Megrahi’s release after the doctor who diagnosed him with terminal cancer, Karol Sikora, told British newspapers in early July he was embarrassed al-Megrahi is still alive almost a year later.

 

‘They asked the State Department to investigate, and they’re asking BP to pledge not to drill in Libya until we get to the bottom of what happened here and make sure there was no quid pro quo,’ Young said.

The senators sent the letter to Clinton yesterday and have not yet received a response, he said.

 

Peter Lowenstein, the father of another SU student victim, Alexander Lowenstein, said he does not think anything will come of the senators’ call for further investigation.

 

‘If anything else comes out it will probably be another lie and if (an oil deal) does come out, you can’t change what has happened and there’s no way the Libyans are going to give (al-Megrahi) up,’ Lowenstein said.

 

Gillibrand called both al-Megrahi’s release and BP’s potential involvement ‘a total miscarriage of justice’ and said he never should have been released last August.

 

‘From day one last year when he was released we knew it was a sham and he was probably going to live for more than three months,’ said Bob Hunt, the father of Karen Hunt, an SU student who died in the bombing. ‘We seriously suspected that there was some type of deal in the works there based on developing economic ties between Great Britain and Libya.’

 

Schumer said BP should cooperate with the investigation if it has nothing to hide.

 

‘It’s almost too disgusting to fathom that BP had a possible role in securing the release of the Lockerbie terrorist in return for an oil drilling deal,’ he said. ‘The evidence may be circumstantial but if I were a prosecutor, I’d love to take this case to a jury.’

 

kronayne@syr.edu

 

Published on July 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm