British prime minister now agrees bomber's release was wrong.
Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, is seen in his room at Tripoli international hospital, in Libya, on Sept. 9, 2009. Scotland freed him on compassionate grounds to allow him to die at home. But a doctor has said he could live another 10 years.Washington -- New York’s U.S. senators plan to turn up the heat this week on BP after a series of reports suggested the British oil giant received a Libyan oil contract in exchange for the early release of the convicted bomber of Pan Am Flight 103.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is due to visit Syracuse University this afternoon where he will explain why he wants Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation into BP’s role in the release of the bomber, former Libyan agent Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
Schumer will appear at SU’s Wall of Remembrance to the 35 students killed in the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. He is expected to be joined by several local families who lost relatives in the bombing, which killed 270 people, including five others with ties to Central New York.
The Scottish government released the cancer-stricken al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last year after several doctors agreed he had only months to live. Now 10 months later, one of the doctors said last week that al-Megrahi could live for years.
Schumer, outraged at reports that BP lobbied the British and Scottish governments for the bomber’s release in exchange for a $900 million drilling deal with Libya, said he would like Holder to find out if BP violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The act makes it unlawful for corporations to give anything of value to foreign officials – including lobbying -- to influence any act or decision in their official capacity.
Schumer also will react to new comments from British Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the bomber's release "completely and utterly wrong." Cameron will visit the United States this week.
Separately, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, formally requested a hearing to look into the matter.
“We have seen an abundance of circumstantial evidence that the British and Scottish governments may have circumvented justice…to secure a lucrative oil drilling concession for British Petroleum,” Gillibrand wrote Thursday in her request to the committee chairman. “If true, this would be outrageous, and demands immediate scrutiny.”
Mark Weiner’s Washington Notebook appears Sunday in The Post-Standard. He can be reached at mweiner@syracuse.com or 571-970-3751.