Obama expresses 'disappointment' at Megrahi release

Friday, 11 September 2009 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

President Obama used his phone call with Gordon Brown yesterday to express his "disappointment" at the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

The comments were not repeated by Downing Street, who insisted the call had focused on the 'special relationship'.

However, a London spokesman did confirm the subject "came up" after the White House released details of the call.

"The president expressed his disappointment over the Scottish Executive's decision to release convicted Pan Am 103 Bomber al-Megrahi back to Libya," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

The forty minute telephone call last night was the eighth between the two leaders.

Mr Brown insisted in the phone call that the release was a matter for the Scottish executive and not Westminster.

Nearly 200 Americans died in the Lockerbie atrocity.

The decision by Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds prompted huge anger from families of the victims on the other side of the Atlantic.

But many Scottish relatives of the victims have campaigned for his release, believing him to be innocent.

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