Much of the world shuddered at the sight of the man convicted of Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity being feted as a hero on his return to Libya last month.

The Government, however, remained strangely silent. Apart from suggesting the welcoming ceremony for the Lockerbie bomber was in poor taste, Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, refused to express any view on the release of cancer-stricken Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from Greenock Prison on compassionate grounds. It was, they insisted, solely a matter for the devolved Scottish government.

This display of stonewall neutrality crumbled yesterday under the weight of hundreds of documents released by the Scottish and UK governments.

One stood out: minutes of a meeting between Scottish justice ministers and a Libyan delegation on March 12. These recorded how Abdulate Alobidi, the Libyan minister for Europe, had relayed details of a visit to Tripoli the previous month by Bill Rammell, then a Foreign Office minister, to discuss a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA).

“Mr Alobidi confirmed that he had reiterated to Mr Rammell that the death of Mr Megrahi in a Scottish prison would have catastrophic effects for the relationship between Libya and the UK,” it stated. “Mr Alobidi went on to say that Mr Rammell had stated that neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary would want Mr Megrahi to pass away in prison but the decision on transfer lies in the hands of the Scottish authorities.”

His main concern was, apparently, was the “delay in the PTA ratification process” and he told the meeting that he “would be speaking to the UK Government the next day on this matter”.

There was, undoubtedly a great deal of pressure being applied by the Libyans to both governments and business over the fate of al-Megrahi. Nor can there be much question that, until quite late in the process, the expectation in Tripoli was that he would be transferred to a Libyan prison.

On November 18 last year, Mr Alobidi told Scottish officials that the “situation was bad for relations between the UK and Libya, it would be a major problem should Mr Megrahi die in prison and would be viewed as a form of death sentence”. He made a similar point on January 22.

By then the Scottish Government knew that al-Megrahi was considering dropping his appeal — one of the last remaining barriers to him being flown home under the PTA. The Libyans were concerned about al-Megrahi’s health and found him “close to death”. They asked who they should speak to if he “wanted to abandon the appeal”. Robert Gordon, director general of Scotland’s Justice Department, said no final decision could be made until “all criteria” were met. The terms of the treaty specify that there must be no outstanding legal proceedings.

The Libyans, however, were not the only country lobbying hard over the PTA. In Washington, Eric Holder, the Attorney General, and Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, were making plain to the British and Scottish governments that letting al-Megrahi be transferred would break a decade-old agreement that anyone convicted of the Lockerbie bombing should serve their sentence in Scotland.

This had been a compromise painstakingly negotiated by Robin Cook, when Foreign Secretary, to overcome Madeleine Albright’s opposition to plans to try the Lockerbie suspects in The Netherlands. Mr Cook later said the insistence that those convicted should be jailed in Scotland as a matter “of principle” for both nations.

Although the British Government redacted any mention of US unhappiness in the correspondence released yesterday, The Times has obtained an unexpurgated version of a letter sent by the Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, on August 3. “You will recognise from discussions with the Attorney General that there is a difference of emphasis between the UK and the US Governments on the extent to which a political understanding was reached in 1998-99 regarding the future imprisonment of the Lockerbie accused.” he wrote.

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