Obama to Brown: Lockerbie Release a 'Disappointment'

Minutes strengthen rumors of oil deal

(NEWSER) - More Lockerbie troubles for Gordon Brown. Newly released documents suggest the UK prime minister didn't want Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi to die in a Scottish prison, the London Times reports. The development will further fuel speculation that Britain tacitly led the push for Megrahi's release in exchange for a cozy oil deal with Libya. More»

(NEWSER) - Opposition parties are turning up the heat on Gordon Brown after Moammar Gadhafi’s son said the fate of the Lockerbie bomber came up often in trade talks between Libya and the UK. Tories say that raises “serious questions” about 10 Downing St.’s role in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on humanitarian grounds. The public needs to know “beyond any doubt that this was not connected with some political trade,” wrote David Cameron in a letter to Brown. More»

Scotland has final say over inmate's fate

(NEWSER) - Libya is pressing the Scottish government to OK a transfer that would allow a terminally ill Lockerbie conspirator to die at home, the BBC reports. The prisoner, who was convicted in 2001 for his role in the 1988 Pan Am bombing, would have to drop an appeal that's currently being heard if he hopes to be repatriated. The Scottish government has the final say, and victims' relatives are split over the issue. More»

It's been a year since controversial release

(NEWSER) - It's been a year since Scotland made the staggering decision to free the man convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 and 270 souls over Lockerbie, and the US has a little anniversary message: Put him back in jail. White House counterterror chief John Brennan told Scottish officials that "Megrahi should serve out the remainder—the entirety—of his sentence in a Scottish prison." More»

Embarrassed doctor calls prognosis 'unusual'

(NEWSER) - The Libyan man convicted of 270 counts of murder for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and freed by Scotland in 2009 because he was dying of prostate cancer could live for 10 more years, the doctor whose opinion helped free him now says. Abdelbasat Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the bombing of the Pan Am flight, was believed to have 3 months to live when he was granted compassionate release so he could die in Libya. His survival is "very unusual," Karol Sikora tells the Sunday Times of London, according to MSNBC . More»