Gadhafi: Release of Lockerbie bomber should improve U.K.-Libya ties

Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi held out the prospect of stronger ties with Britain following the release by a Scottish court of a man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, Libyan state media reported.

Meeting with Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and his family, Gadhafi thanked Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Queen Elizabeth for "encouraging" Scottish authorities to release Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, said Libyan news agency JANA.

"This step is in the interest of relations between the two countries ... and of the personal friendship between me and them and will be positively reflected for sure in all areas of cooperation between the two countries," Gadhafi said.

The British government has denied it put pressure on Scotland's devolved government over Megrahi in the interest of better ties with oil-rich Libya.

The former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the Lockerbie bombing vowed on Saturday to present new evidence before he died that would exonerate him of any involvement in the attack that killed 270 people.

Al-Megrahi, speaking in an interview with Britain's Times newspaper, dismissed the international furor over his release from a life sentence in Scotland on compassionate grounds because of his terminal cancer condition.

Megrahi, who was allowed to return home to Libya on Thursday, said U.S. President Barack Obama and others should know he would not be doing anything apart from going to hospital for treatment and waiting to die.

"My message to the British and Scottish communities is that I will put out the evidence [to exonerate me] and ask them to be the jury," Megrahi said without elaborating.

Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted of the murder of all 259 people on board a Pan Am Boeing 747 and 11 killed on the ground when the aircraft exploded above the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. He was convicted in 2001.

"If there is justice in [Britain] I would be acquitted or the verdict would be quashed because it was unsafe. There was a miscarriage of justice," he said.

The decision to release Megrahi was made by the devolved Scottish government, which has its own powers on justice and several other policy areas that are free of control from London.

Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi met Megrahi a day after he was released from a Scottish jail, a news report said Friday.

Gadhafi received the terminally ill 57-year-old and his family on Friday, the Libyan news agency Jana said.

The United States and Britain, in turn, have condemned a "hero's welcome" given to Megrahi on his return to Libya.

Obama described as "highly objectionable" scenes at Tripoli airport where hundreds of young Libyans cheered and waved national flags when Megrahi flew home.

"[Obama] knows I'm a very ill person. You know what kind of illness I have," said Megrahi.

"The only place I have to go is the hospital for medical treatment. I'm not interested in going anywhere else.

"Don't worry, Mr Obama - it's just three months [until I die]."

Megrahi said he understood why many of the victims' relatives were angry at his release.

"They have hatred for me. It's natural to behave like this," he said, although he added that others had written to him in prison to say they forgave him whether he was guilty or innocent.

"They believe I'm guilty which in reality I'm not. One day the truth won't be hiding as it is now. We have an Arab saying: "The truth never dies.'"

Megrahi said he was "very, very happy" to have been allowed to return home.

When doctors had told him he had just a few months left to live, "this was my hope and wish - to be back with my family before I pass away," he said.

The White House on Friday called the celebrations upon Megrahi's return "outrageous and disgusting."

"The images that we saw in Libya yesterday were outrageous and disgusting. We continue to express our condolences to the families that lost a loved one as a result of this terrorist murder," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Britain joined in the condemnation on Friday, and scrambled to deflect international fallout from the decision to free him on humanitarian grounds.

"The sight of a mass murderer getting a hero's welcome in Tripoli is deeply upsetting, deeply distressing, above all for the 270 families who grieve every day for the loss of their loved ones 21 years ago," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told BBC Radio.

"How the Libyan government handles itself in the next few days will be very significant in the way the world views Libya's re-entry into the civilized community of nations," he added.

Miliband dismissed claims that the British government had wanted Megrahi to be freed to bolster diplomatic and commercial ties with Libya and was content to let Scotland's devolved government take the blame for an unpopular decision.

"That is a slur both on myself and the government," he said, adding that no pressure had been put on the Scottish government.

On Saturday, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the release is an act that gives comfort to terrorists all over the world.

Mueller expressed his dismay in a letter to Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, in a tone that is out of character with the normally reserved Mueller, indicating his outrage is personal as well as professional. He also sent copies to the families of the Lockerbie victims.

"I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors," Mueller wrote. "Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law. ... And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of 'compassion.'"

Before he became FBI director, Mueller spent years as a Justice epartment lawyer leading the investigation into the bombing.

He said Thursday's release was as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. "Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law."

"Releasing the convicted bomber gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation... the terrorist will be freed by one man's exercise of 'compassion.'"

Mueller recounted his own emotional experiences leading the investigation - seeing a teenage victim's single sneaker, a Syracuse University sweatshirt, toys in the suitcase of a businessman heading home to see his wife and children for Christmas.

"Your action," he wrote MacAskill, "makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988. You could not have spent much time with the families, certainly not as much time as others involved in the investigation and prosecution."

He ended the Lockerbie letter with a frustrated question: "Where, I ask, is the justice?"

Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103, a group representing families of U.S. victims, said he understood Libya had promised Megrahi would not "go back to a hero's welcome."

"There is going to be no dancing in the end-zone, as the expression goes," he told Reuters on Thursday.

Gadhafi's son thanks Britain

State media had made no mention of Megrahi's possible return but a newspaper close to leader Muammar Gadhafi's reformist son, Saif al-Islam, was following his progress.

Islam, who accompanied Megrahi back to Libya, promised last year to work for Megrahi's release and praised the British and Scottish authorities in words likely to add to their discomfort.

"I also personally thank our friends in the British government as they have had an important role in reaching this happy conclusion," he said in a statement.

"I affirm that the Libyan people will not forget this brave stance from the governments of Britain and Scotland and that friendship between us will be enhanced forever. The page of the past has been turned and is now behind us," he added.

The crowd that greeted them at Tripoli's Mitiga airport, a former U.S. air base, were mostly members of Libya's National Youth Association which is close to Gadhafi's son.

Alex Salmond, head of the devolved Scottish government, condemned the celebrations.

"I don't think the reception for Mr al-Megrahi was appropriate in Libya, I don't think that was wise and I don't think that was the right thing to do," he said.

The case has added to tensions between the devolved government led by the separatist Scottish National Party and the British government led by the Labour party.