Jacqui Smith yesterday became the first senior Labour Westminster figure to oppose the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber. On the day Gordon Brown finally acknowledged that he “respected” the decision to allow home Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, his former Home Secretary broke ranks.
Ms Smith, who stood down in June, said that the decision did not “feel right”. Interviewed on BBC Radio 2, she said that although she had not seen all the documentation, the bomber had been able to return home “in a way in which his victims were not”.
She added: “Of course we have to be compassionate with people who are in prison and coming to the end of their lives, but I am not sure I would have made the same decision.”
Ms Smith’s words compounded Mr Brown’s embarrassment as he had just finally commented on the decision, and because his party in Scotland was opposing it in the Scottish Parliament.
Although Mr Brown stopped short of confirming that he had favoured releasing al-Megrahi from prison, he stated: “Did we as a government say we would try to stop the Scottish executive and force Megrahi to die in prison? No. We did not do so, and did not have the power to do so — and that was the right thing to do.”
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Mr Brown said: “There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi.” But, after two weeks of criticism over his refusal to express a view on the bitterly contested release of al-Megrahi, he then added: “I respect the right of Scottish ministers to make the decision — and the decision.”
Mr Brown’s belated reaction yesterday to al-Megrahi’s return to Libya exasperated ministers, who argued that the Government could have avoided bad headlines over the past fortnight if he had expressed a view earlier.
His comments in Birmingham came less than 24 hours after it was disclosed how a minister had told the Libyans that neither Mr Brown nor David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, wanted al-Megrahi to die in prison.
The Government is highly sensitive on the issue because it negotiated a prisoner transfer deal with Libya despite a decade-old promise to the United States that anyone convicted of the Lockerbie bombing would serve their sentence out in Scotland.
Philip “PJ” Crowley, chief spokesman for the US State Department, has taken the unusual step of airing a di — agreement with Britain in public. “Over the ensuing ten years the US did not change its position but the UK did,” he said. “It’s really up to the UK to explain its current position.”
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David Rivkin, who worked in the Reagan and Bush administrations, said he could not think of “a more duplicitous act by Britain vis-a-vis the US in the postwar period”. He told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One: “This will damage US relations with Britain for years to come. This is the kind of duplicitous behaviour most people do not expect from Britain.”
He said: “If you untack what Mr Miliband basically said, it was clear that the British Government at the highest level wanted to please Libya by letting Megrahi get out of prison. To say to Libya, in the situation where they are the ones responsible fundamentally for carrying out this attack . . . saying ‘We don’t want him to die in prison’ — that’s total nonsense.”
Documents released on Tuesday showed that when negotiations over the prisoner transfer treaty were at a critical stage this year, Bill Rammell, who was then Foreign Office minister, told the Libyans that Mr Brown and Mr Miliband hoped that al-Megrahi would not “pass away” in prison. Mr Miliband confirmed that version of events yesterday.
The Prime Minister’s comments yesterday, which came close to endorsing the decision to free al-Megrahi, appeared to undermine the position of the Labour leadership in Scotland.
It had used yesterday’s debate in the Scottish Parliament to attack the decision to release al-Megrahi. The debate resulted in a defeat for the SNP government by 73 votes to 50.
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Mr Brown had claimed credit for persuading the Libyan Government not to parade al-Megrahi at celebrations on Tuesday marking the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought Colonel Gaddafi to power.
“Was I right to use my energies to minimise further unnecessary suffering for the relatives of Lockerbie victims and to prevent Libyan independence day being made into a celebration of Megrahi’s return?” he asked. “Yes. And as we saw yesterday, he did not appear at those events.”