A catalogue of errors that shames the UK

After the bizarre release of al-Megrahi, the British public have been left disgracefully in the dark

David Cameron

Twelve days ago, Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi was released by the Scottish government. His freedom came two decades after a bomb, which was smuggled on to Pan Am Flight 103, exploded over Lockerbie, killing 11 people on the ground and 259 people on the plane. The only man convicted of the crime, al-Megrahi spent just eight years in prison - less than a fortnight for each victim - and was welcomed back to Tripoli as a returning hero.

Decisions concerning the fate of criminals, not least those responsible for mass murder, often provoke widespread public anger. But the outrage at this one has crossed continents and damaged our relationship with our closest ally, America. It has been a fiasco.

At its heart lies a series of failure of judgment. The first failure was the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, to release al-Megrahi on "compassionate grounds". Due process found al-Megrahi guilty, a verdict upheld on appeal. The Libyan Government accepted responsibility for the bombing and paid compensation to the Lockerbie families. Any doubts about the safety of al-Megrahi's conviction should have been tested by the second appeal, which he instead withdrew. That is why I said that compassionate release was completely inappropriate. We are dealing here with someone convicted of one of the biggest mass murders in British history. Al-Megrahi's victims were not allowed the luxury of "dying at home". What on earth was Mr MacAskill thinking of when he made this utterly bizarre decision?

The second misjudgment was Gordon Brown's failure to speak up clearly and promptly. On a matter fraught with such emotion, and with the potential to damage Britain's reputation abroad, a decisive lead from the Prime Minister was required. Mr Brown should have condemned the decision to release al-Megrahi. At the very least, he should have expressed an opinion. But all we got, day after day, was a wall of silence, finally broken after a long week when Mr Brown declared that he was "angry" and "repulsed" at scenes in Tripoli. We all were.

But that wasn't the point. People wanted to know what the Prime Minister thought about the decision to release him in the first place. Such candour is a basic requirement of leadership - a quality that once again Mr Brown has demonstrated he lacks.

And the third failure of judgment is emerging. From the outset the British Government has maintained that the decision was a "devolved matter", taken solely by the Scottish authorities on medical grounds. Indeed, Lord Mandelson said it was "offensive" to suggest otherwise. But letters leaked to The Sunday Times show that Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, wrote to Mr MacAskill in December 2007 to suggest that it was "in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom" not to exclude al-Megrahi from the terms of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement between Libya and the UK.

What those interests are remain unclear, though Mr Straw's decision to pave the way for al-Megrahi's release came at a time of tense negotiations between BP and Libya over a multibillion-pound oil exploration deal. Whatever the circumstances, the British Government showed a failure of judgment by even suggesting that the release or transfer of al-Megrahi was an option.

Many will be disgusted by the suggestion that ministers in Whitehall encouraged al-Megrahi's release - and did so for commercial reasons. Diplomacy often involves hard-nosed backroom deals. It would be naive to think otherwise. But there need to be lines you are not prepared to cross; values you will not compromise, whatever deal you broker. I believe even to hint that a convicted terrorist could be used as makeweight for trade is a betrayal of everything that Britain stands for.

It could be that this reading of events is unfair and that the British Government played no substantive role in al-Megrahi's release. Given that ministers are now shifting the blame between each other, that is an interpretation of events that is becoming harder to believe.

But if that is indeed the case, ministers must come completely clean about the extent of their discussions with both the Libyan and Scottish governments. They must do so to help to repair the damage to Britain's reputation. And they have to recognise that the families of the Lockerbie victims want a closure that involves justice and truth, not an open-ended story that unravels leak by leak, spin by spin. If the Government cannot or will not provide an honest and complete account, the only other option is the one the Conservatives are demanding - a full examination by the relevant select committees.

The Government needs to understand that it cannot reject this as an overhyped summer story and dismiss these suspicions out of hand. This issue goes to the core of how this Government operates. Unless these suspicions are properly put to rest, the al-Megrahi case will mark another damning chapter in the sorry history of Labour's years in power.

Today Colonel Gaddafi is commemorating his 40th anniversary as leader of Libya. While he celebrates, the families of Lockerbie will mourn those they lost. Victims of terrorism need to know that their Government is unequivocally on their side, understands their pain and wants to see justice as much as they do. This decision fails on three fronts. There is little we can do now to put right this wrong. But by getting to the bottom of al-Megrahi's release we can begin to try.