Lockerbie Families Outraged Over Details of Prison Exchange Deal

July 19, 2010— -- When British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives in WashingtonTuesday on his first official visit to the U.S. he will step into a maelstrom, as outrage grows over the Lockerbie bomber's thriving health and the possible role of BP in negotiating his release from a Scottish prison last year.

"This is despicable. It's unethical. It's immoral and it is illegal," said Bert Ammerman of River Vale, N.J., whose brother Tom was killed in the bombing perpetrated by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, but which many beileve was orchestrated by the Libyan government.

"I said this a year ago when they released him. I said it was for oil and that big business was pushing the release. I said it everywhere last year, everyone denied it. Now the truth starts coming out," Ammerman told ABCNews.com today.

Nearly a year since Scotland released Megrahi on compassionate grounds because he was said to have had only weeks to live, the terrorist is alive and well in Tripoli, Libya, where he is celebrated as a hero.

In addition to watching Megrahi celebrate a year of freedom, the 270 families whose loved ones were killed in the 1988 PanAm bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, were dealt an additional blow in recent days when it was disclosed that oil giant BP may have pressured the U.K. government to cut a deal in order to gain lucrative oil contracts in Libya.

Politicians from both sides of the Atlantic, seeing the outrage grow anew, condemned Megrahi's release today and called for investigations into the role BP may have played.

"We have read the reports of the correspondence between the former British government and the Scottish government with respect to negotiations with the Government of Libya, particularly whether the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) would include Mr. al-Megrahi. We have also been dismayed to hear from a BP representative that the company actively lobbied the previous government on behalf of the PTA, and media reports suggest BP even tried to address the release of this individual," Sen. Chuck Schumer, N.Y., wrote to Cameron in a letter released today.