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Summary
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron criticized the Scottish government's decision to free Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi from jail last year, saying Monday that the move had been completely and utterly wrong.Prime Minister David Cameron told that he had opposed the decision to return the cancer-stricken prisoner to Libya on compassionate grounds in August. Cameron took office in May, after an inconclusive election that resulted in his Conservative party forming a coalition government that ousted the previous Labour party administration. As leader of opposition, I could not have been more clear that I thought the decision to release Al-Megrahi was completely and utterly wrong, Cameron said. The decision had been made by the Scotland's government, which holds some limited powers within the United Kingdom, and not by the previous British government headed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Britain's growing diplomatic and business ties with Libya had been under intense scrutiny since al-Megrahi's release. Critics have accused British authorities of putting commercial interests before the families of the 270 victims of the attack. British officials have insisted the prisoner transfer deal was part of broader diplomatic effort aimed at furthering efforts to transform Libya from a rogue state to western ally. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi renounced terrorism and dismantled his country's clandestine nuclear program in 2003. Cameron said he understood U.S. anger over BP's role in the spill and tried to defuse U.S. lawmakers' concerns that the company may have had a hand in Scottish authorities' release last year of a Libyan convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. But Cameron, under pressure at home to stand up for the British energy giant against the bashing it has faced in Washington, also insisted it was in US and British interests for the company to remain strong and viable.
