Word: libya
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...correspondence, Justice Minister Straw didn't specifically mention Libya's oil wealth. But the importance of maintaining Britain's good ties with Gaddafi is clear in the letters, as when Straw explained why he chose not to exclude al-Megrahi from a prisoner-transfer agreement between Britain and Libya that was signed in November 2008. "I do not believe it is necessary, or sensible, to risk damaging our wide ranging and beneficial relationship with Libya," he wrote, before signing off, "Yours, Jack...
...Despite suspicions among some politicians and some of the victims' families of a secret deal between Libya and Britain, Prime Minister Brown and key Cabinet members have insisted that al-Megrahi's release was decided solely by Scotland's Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, who freed him on compassionate grounds, saying he was dying of prostate cancer and had only three months left to live. (Read "Was Oil Part of a Deal for the Lockerbie Bomber...
...center around his background of general good health, quality of health care and overall lifestyle, involvement in his care and compliance with treatment." Justice Minister Straw has said he originally argued to have al-Megrahi excluded from last November's bilateral prisoner-transfer agreement but ultimately gave in to Libya's demands; in the end, al-Megrahi was freed under Scottish law, which permits compassionate releases...
...Libya's Minister of External Relations, Mohammed Siala, further stoked the secret-deal theory on Sept. 1 when he suggested that the release would probably help Britain's prospects in the country. "This political problem is unstuck. At least we moved it away, and this will open good avenues for developing relations," he told reporters in Tripoli...
...None of this probably bothered Gaddafi, say Libya watchers, who believe the absences in the VIP stands were a superficial show of protest at Libya's reaction to al-Megrahi's release, rather than a sign of a rift between Libya and the West. "This is a significant country with an unusual leader, who uses his wealth to conjure up influence in places like Africa," says Richard Dalton, who was Britian's ambassador to Libya until 2002 and is now a fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. For the West, he says, Gaddafi is "much better to work...