BP and the Lockerbie Bomber's Release

From Bret Stephens, "A (Better) Reason to Hate BP: Did the Oil Giant Profit From the Lockerbie Bomber's Release?"

British Petroleum, with a pending $900 million drilling contract with the Libyan regime, did some hard lobbying, in 2007, in London. BP "told the U.K. government ... 'it was concerned that a delay in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with the Libyan government might hurt' the deal it had just signed."

Of course, Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi is now expected to live 10 years (after being released with "just weeks" to live last year).

As Stephens notes:

BP has now spent the past 11 weeks promising to make things right for everyone affected by the Gulf spill. But for the families of Pan Am Flight 103's 270 victims, things can never be made right. Nor, following Megrahi's release, will justice ever be served. The question that BP could usefully answer—and answer fully—is whether, in that denial of justice, their interests were served. It won't restore the company to honor, but it might do something to restore a measure of trust.

Also at "The Lockerbie Case."