20100716
reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Britain may wish to explain the circumstances leading to last year's release of a Libyan convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and what role, if any, BP Plc may have played, to U.S. lawmakers investigating the matter, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the suggestion during a 12-minute telephone call with British Foreign Minister William Hague that covered several other topics, spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

The Scottish government has denied it had any contact with oil firm BP Plc before its decision last year to release Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to Tripoli on compassionate grounds.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday said it would ask BP officials to testify after the UK-based oil giant said it had lobbied the British government in 2007 over a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

BP has said it was not involved in any discussions regarding Megrahi's release.

"The secretary indicated that, you know, it might be appropriate for the British government to communicate with Congress as well to make sure that they fully understand, you know, what transpired a year ago," Crowley said.

Megrahi was the only person convicted of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special Scottish court sitting in The Netherlands in 2001 and released in August by Scotland because he was suffering terminal prostate cancer and was said to have as little as three months to live.