FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE LOCKERBIE BOMBER

That this House sincerely regrets the decision of the Foreign Office under the last administration, when it reportedly wrote to Libyan officials offering them detailed legal advice on how to use Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's cancer diagnosis to ensure that he was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds; notes that it has been reported in the Daily Telegraph that the Libyans closely followed this advice from the Foreign Office, only a few months after this letter, and that this led to the controversial release of al-Megrahi, the terrorist and Lockerbie bomber, who was convicted by a British court in 2001 for the murder of 270 innocent passengers on Pan Am flight 103; and concludes that this new information seriously undermines the last Labour administration's claims that there was no double-dealing in the release of al-Megrahi and that the decision was solely the responsibility of the devolved Scottish Executive.