White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi | The Australian

White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi

Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.

The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack

And any Americans who disapprove of freeing unrepentant terrorists, even those who didn't have relatives who died in the attack.

, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.

The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to completely undermines US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of Megrahi's release. [LPB - I corrected that sentence...]

Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as "half-hearted" and a sign it would be accepted

Which it clearly was and has been.

But then, terrorism has never really been a big concern of this Ayers-befriending President of ours...