Felicity Arbuthnot: Tony Blair: Libya, Lockerbie, Arms and Betrayals.

This will surely have you falling down with surprise. According to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained by the UK Sunday Telegraph, the August 2009 release from Scotlands Barlinnie jail of Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrari, accused of the bombing of Pan AM flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, hinged on an oil and arms deal, allegedly brokered by roving war monger, sorry, roving Peace Ambassador Tony Blair. At this point it should be said that anyone who has read John \Ashton and Ian Fergusons meticulous Cover up of Convenience on the Lockerbie tragedy could only regard Mr al-Meghrahis conviction as between very unsafe and very questionable. The British Labour Party, which Blair headed for ten years, until 27th June 2007, have always insisted that the release had no connection with commercial deals. After leaving Downing Street, Blair visited Libya some six times. On 8th June 2008, the then British Ambassador to Libya, Sir Vincent Fean, sent Tony Blairs private office a thirteen hundred word briefing on the UKs eagerness to do business with Libya, according to the Telegraph. Blair flew to Tripoli to meet Colonel Quaddafi, just two days later, June 10th. Quaddafi paid: Blair, always lavish with others money had requested, and was granted, the Colonels private jet for the journey. Sir Vincents key objective was for: Libya to invest its L80 billion sovereign wealth through the City of London, according to the Telegraph, which also cites the Ambassador writing of the UK being: privately critical of then President George Bush for shooting the US in the foot by continuing to put a block on Libyan assets in America, in the process scuppering business deals. Britain however, was voraciously scrambling to fill the fiscal gap. Unlike the US and UK who abandon or drone to death their own citizens who are in trouble, or even accused of it, Libya's Administration had stood by their man and seemed to be prepared to do even unpalatable deals to free him and had long been pressuring
the UK to release al-Megrahi. In May 2007, a month before he left Downing Street, Blair had made his second visit to Libya, meeting Colonel Quaddafi and his Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali a-Mahmoudi in then beautiful and now near ruined city of Sirte. Surely coincidental, on this trip, a deal was seemingly thrashed out, including prisoner transfer, just before British Petroleum (BP) announced their approximately L454 million investment to prospect for L13 billion worth of oil in Libya. Also, states the Telegraph report: At that meeting, according to Sir Vincents email, Mr Blair and Mr Al Baghdadi agreed that Libya would buy a missile defence system from MBDA, a weapons manufacturer part-owned by Britainss BAE Systems.