Libya believes it has reached a deal with Britain that could see a Libyan convicted for the Lockerbie bombings extradited home in return for last week’s release of six foreign medics, Muammar Gaddafi's son was quoted as saying today.

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, a former Libyan secret service agent, is in prison in Scotland after being convicted over the 1998 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.

In June al-Megrahi won the right to a new appeal, after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled that he may have been wrongly convicted and referred his case back to the High Court.

In an interview with France’s Le Monde newspaper today, Saif ul-Islam Gaddafi said that Tripoli had drawn a link between Megrahi’s judicial situation and that of the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor jailed for infecting children with the AIDS virus.

Asked whether the two cases were connected, Saif ul-Islam replied: “Yes. We established a link.”

He also told Le Monde that he hoped Megrahi would soon be sent back to Libya.

“We will soon have an extradition agreement with Britain,” he said, referring to a memorandum of understanding on an extradition deal signed with Libya during a visit by Tony Blair in May.

Saif ul-Islam said that the medics’ release - in which France played a key role - had also paved the way for the signing of major arms contracts with France.

“With the French, we have been in negotiations for a long time. We asked Sarkozy to accelerate things. Now that the nurses’ case is settled, a golden opportunity has arisen,” he said.

A day after the medics’ release, President Sarkozy travelled to Tripoli where he signed an agreement with Libya pledging to cooperate on several nuclear energy projects, including building a reactor for water desalination.

The nuclear deal has been criticised by environmentalists as a potential proliferation risk, but according to Le Monde, “the heart of the matter” was not the nuclear project, but a wide-ranging defence agreement.

“Firstly, the accord covers joint military exercises, of course. Then we will purchase anti-tank Milan missiles from France, for about 100 million euros I believe,” the Libyan leader's son was quoted as saying.

“Afterwards, there is a plan to manufacture arms, to maintain and produce military equipment. You know this is the first agreement by a Western nation to supply weapons to Libya.

“Representatives of Thales and Sagem are in Libya as we speak,” he said, referring to two French defence and electronics manufacturers.

As head of the Gaddafi Foundation, which negotiated the nurses' release and a $400 million compensation deal for the sick children’s families, Saif ul-Islam repeated the claim that “no Libyan money was paid to these families”.

“What I can say is that the French sorted things out. The French found the money for the families. But I don’t know where they found it,” he said, adding that Libya had got “a good deal” out of the case. Mr Sarkozy and the European Union both denied paying any financial compensation for the medics’ freedom.

Asked whether Qatar, which helped negotiate the deal, had served as a financial intermediary, Saif ul-Islam replied:“We did not ask questions. We did not want to embarrass our friends."

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