No.10 to publish correspondence on Lockerbie bomber

"All relevant" correspondence to be released ahead of debate in Scottish parliament

Downing Street is to publish correspondence between UK ministers and the Scottish government on the release of the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombings.

No.10 said that "all relevant correspondence between ministers and the Scottish executive" would be published this afternoon, in the run-up to a debate in the Scottish parliament about the release of Adelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

In the Scottish parliament, Labour, the Tories, and the Liberal Democrats have all voiced opposition to the decision by Kenny MacAskill, the SNP Scottish justice secretary.

No.10 hopes that the letters will prove that the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombings was not based on business interests in Libya.

The documents are expected to include details of an Anglo-Libyan prisoner transfer agreement, from which Megrahi was to be excluded until Jack Straw, the justice secretary, intervened in 2007. He said that it was "overwhelmingly in the interests of the UK" to include Megrahi in the agreement.

This follows a demand from Libya that Britain provide details of an alleged plot to kill leader Muammar Gaddafi in 1996 in return for co-operation in investigating the murder of British police officer Yvonne Fletcher.