Menendez Calls On BP Chief Hayward, Scottish And British Officials To Come Clean Over Lockerbie Bomber

Eileen Walsh of Glen Rock lost her father, brother and sister in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

Mary Kay Stratis of Montvale lost her husband in the of Pan Am flight 103.
(photos by Martin DiCaro)

On the day it was learned that BP CEP Tony Hayward will step down in October, U.S Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said Monday that Hayward and British and Scottish government officials are being asked to testify before a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez will chair the hearing Thursday on the release of convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdulbaset al-Magrehi, who was released by the Scottish government on humanitarian grounds after doctors gave him only three months to live. Eleven months later al-Magrehi is alive in his native Libya.

At a news conference in Times Square, flanked by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and relatives of the Pan Am 103 victims, Menendez said "an abundance of incredible circumstances" created a cloud of suspicion, not least the fact that al-Magrehi has survived.

The senators want to know if British Petroleum exerted undue influence on the British government to secure the release of the Libyan terrorist so BP could secure a contract for oil drilling of the Libyan coast.

"To this end the hearing provides a prime opportunity for us to get more information and for those who are suspected in having a role, it provides an opportunity to answer questions that will set the record straight," said Menendez, who said Mr. Hayward and British and Scottish officials have yet to cooperate with his request to appear in Washington.

"The government doesn't seem to care about the actual bombing, the murder, the cover-up, the whole bit. They just wanted their oil. The lives meant nothing," said Eileen Walsh of Glen Rock, whose father, brother and sister were among the 270 victims when Pan Am 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. 38 New Jersey residents were killed.

"It just saddens me and breaks my heart that justice for these 270 murdered people was sold for oil," she said.

Mary Kay Stratis of Montvale, who lost her husband in the terrorist bombing, said their refusal to cooperate makes BP and U.K government officials appear to be hiding something.

"He was the one crumb of justice that we had," Stratis said, referring to al-Magrehi. "He was convicted in court. He lost his appeal of that conviction. Justice was served, but justice was taken away from us with that conviction."

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