I placed this here rather than in the BP thread in Breaking News because it really isn't about the spill. I can move it if ya'll prefer.
By Jesse Solomon, CNN

(CNN) -- A group of U.S. lawmakers have called for an investigation into whether BP may have played a role in lobbying for the release of Abdelbaset al Megrahi to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government.

Megrahi, now 58, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

He was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds in August after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

"Reports have surfaced indicating that a 2007 oil agreement may have influenced the U.K. and Scottish governments' positions concerning Mr. Megrahi's release in 2009," wrote Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey in a letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Monday.

"The families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103 deserve to know whether justice took a back seat to commercial interests in this case," Lautenberg said.

Mark Salt, a spokesman for BP in Houston, Texas, declined to discuss the Senators' probe.

"We're not going to comment on speculation," he said.

BP, which plans to begin offshore drilling in Libya in the coming months, touted the 2007 oil agreement as "the single biggest exploration financial commitment an international energy company has ever made to Libya," according to the company's website.

The troubled oil giant stands to earn as much as $20 billion from the deal, according to Lautenberg.

Megrahi, who only served eight years of his life sentence for the bombing, was released by a Scottish court on "compassionate" grounds, citing a doctor's opinion at the time that he was dying from prostate cancer and had only three months to live.

In a letter to the British government last week, Lautenberg was joined by Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York and Bob Menendez of New Jersey in calling the validity of such a prognosis into question.

"Mr. Al Megrahi is still alive and reportedly living in luxury," the letter said. "The doctor responsible for the key medical opinion has told the media that not only could Mr. Al Megrahi live another 10 years, but that the Libyan government had commissioned the doctor to make his assessment."

In response, the British Embassy in Washington posted a letter on its website from the British ambassador to Gillibrand on defending Megrahi's release.

"The decision to grant Mr. Megrahi's compassionate release was made on the basis of advice from the Director of Health at the Scottish Prison Service, who drew on the advice of a number of medical experts," the ambassador said.

Brian Kelly, who lost his brother in the attack and fought vigorously to deny Megrahi's freedom, said he isn't surprised that Megrahi is still alive and believes BP was directly responsible for his release.

"You can't allow the process of justice to be corrupted by the cynical mercantilism of one company," Kelly said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/13/bp.release.connection/index.html?hpt=T2

Is there NO HOLE these letches will not crawl into to make a bug, the make me want to PUKE

Britain: BP not linked to Lockerbie bomber release

updated 7/17/2010 4:20:22 PM ET
WASHINGTON — There is no evidence BP Plc had any connection to last year's release of a Libyan man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing, Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Saturday.

Hague sent U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry a letter offering that assurance as BP remains under scrutiny over its massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the U.S. coast.

The Foreign Relations Committee has scheduled a July 29 hearing on possible ties between BP and the release by Scotland of Abdel Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer who was the only person convicted of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.

"There is no evidence that corroborates in any way the allegations of BP involvement in the Scottish Executive's decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009, nor any suggestion that the Scottish Executive decided to release Megrahi in order to facilitate oil deals for BP," Hague said in the letter obtained by Reuters.

Scotland released Megrahi last August, despite fierce protests by U.S. officials, after being advised he was suffering terminal prostate cancer and had as little as three months to live. He returned to Tripoli and is still alive.

The Scottish government on Friday denied it had any contact with BP before its decision to release Megrahi.

BP has said that it had expressed concerns and lobbied the British government about the slow progress in resolving a different prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in 2007.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38292317/ns/politics/?

I call BS, the ONLY reason I say this is that I put NOTHING past these greedy buggers, I smell a coverup