20100808
reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland launched a scathing attack on U.S. politicians on Sunday saying they were in no moral position to lecture Scottish ministers over the Lockerbie bomber's release.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, said there was a "culture of vengeance" in the United States and that many Americans were more interested in retribution than justice.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, convicted of the 1988 bombings of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, was freed last year on compassionate grounds by Scottish authorities because they believed he had three months to live. He is still alive.

Most of the 270 people killed were Americans and Megrahi's release and subsequent triumphant homecoming in Libya provoked an outcry in the United States.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is examining the circumstances surrounding the decision, but Scottish officials and Britain's former justice minister have all declined to appear, generating further condemnation.

Last week four senators wrote to Britain's foreign secretary saying it appeared British trade interests had "won out over justice" over the release.

"I think I'm speaking for many, many Scots people when I say we're just getting a bit fed up of being lectured to by the United States of America as to how to administer justice," O'Brien told BBC radio.

U.S. anger over the release resurfaced following suggestions British energy giant BP Plc had lobbied for Megrahi's release. Both BP and Scottish ministers deny the accusations.