Megrahi Redux

Once upon a time, The Megrahi Exodus was imagined:

The release of "convicted" Lockerbie bomber, and former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Akli al-Megrahi was presaged by an "annual gathering of influential people."

Britain's Lord Mandelson met Libyan president Colonel Muamar Gaddafi's grandson at the "Rothschild villa in Corfu" prior to the release from Scottish prison of Libyan intelligence officer and convicted criminal by a Dutch court under Scottish law in the 1988 Lockerbie Scotland case, the above-mentioned al-Megrahi. ...

More UK-Libyan trade deals are to follow. The US, too, is in on the action, as is France, Canada, and Russia. Indeed, the UK was lagging badly and needed to catch up. Oil, oil infrastructure, commercial construction, military hardware, ...

Well, how 'bout these apples?

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.

"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.
...

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, ....

Yeah, quite a shocker.