Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi hugged the convicted Lockerbie bomber and promised more cooperation with Britain in gratitude for his release, while London and Washington condemned his “hero's welcome” home. Meeting Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi and his family late Friday, Gaddafi thanked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Queen Elizabeth for “encouraging” Scotland to release the dying prisoner from a Scottish jail, Libyan news agency JANA reported. After receiving a warm embrace from Gaddafi, Megrahi bent forward and kissed the leader's hand, TV images showed. “This step is in the interest of relations between the two countries ... and of the personal friendship between me and them and will be positively reflected for sure in all areas of cooperation between the two countries,” the Libyan leader said. Earlier, Gaddafi's son Seif Al-Islam told Megrahi that in negotiations with Britain, he had personally made Megrahi's freedom a condition of potential energy trade deals. “In all British interests regarding Libya, I always put you on the table,” Gaddafi's son's newspaper quoted him as saying. Speculation that there had been some form of agreement was fueled by the disclosure that Britain's Business Secretary Lord Mandelson had met Seif Al-Islam during his recent holiday on the Greek island of Corfu. Britain flatly denied the release was in any way linked to business deals with Libya, which has Africa's largest proven oil reserves. Britain said all responsibility for his release rested with Scotland, which runs its own judicial affairs. “There is no deal – all decisions relating to Megrahi's case have been exclusively for Scottish ministers, the Crown Office in Scotland and the Scottish judicial authorities,” a spokesman for the Foreign Office said. “No deal has been made between the UK government and Libya in relation to Megrahi and any commercial interests.” Scotland's government Thursday released Megrahi from a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland because he has terminal prostate cancer. The attack killed 270 people, most of them Americans. Relatives of many of the Americans who died in the Lockerbie attack have voiced disgust at Megrahi's release and his reception back in Tripoli. At Megrahi's home in the upmarket Damascus neighborhood of the capital Tripoli, his family were receiving well-wishers Saturday in a lavish marquee set up outside. ‘Obama knows...' Megrahi, who has always maintained his innocence, told The Times newspaper in an interview conducted at his family home that he will present new evidence through his Scottish lawyers that will exonerate him. “My message to the British and Scottish communities is that I will put out the evidence and ask them to be the jury,” he said, refusing to elaborate. He dismissed the international furore over his release, saying US President Barack Obama should know he would not be doing anything apart from going to hospital and waiting to die. Doctors say he may have less than three months to live. “(Obama) knows I'm a very ill person,” said Megrahi. “The only place I have to go is the hospital for medical treatment. I'm not interested in going anywhere else. Don't worry, Mr Obama -- it's just three months (until I die).”
