LONDON (AP) — The British government asked for the Lockerbie bomber to be included in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya because it was in the “overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” as a major oil deal was being negotiated, a British newspaper reported Sunday.

The Sunday Times, citing leaked correspondence between Justice Secretary Jack Straw and his Scottish counterpart, Kenny MacAskill, said the decision was made as “wider negotiations” with the government of Libya continued.

Mr. Straw rejected any suggestion that economic considerations played a role in the decision to release the bomber, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. “The suggestion that at any stage there was some kind of backdoor deal done over Mr. Megrahi’s transfer because of trade is simply untrue,” Mr. Straw said in an interview with the BBC on Sunday.

Mr. Megrahi, 57, who has terminal prostate cancer, was released by Mr. MacAskill this month on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya. He had served eight years of his life sentence for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, which killed 270 people.

The Sunday Times reported that Mr. Straw had originally tried to keep Mr. Megrahi from being included in the prisoner transfer agreement. But five months later, the newspaper said, as a multibillion-dollar deal between a British oil company and Libya stalled, Mr. Straw wrote Mr. MacAskill to say that there would be no exceptions.

“The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual,” the paper quoted Mr. Straw as writing in December 2007. It said the oil deal was ratified six weeks later.

In a statement released Sunday, Mr. Straw said it had always been made clear during negotiations with Libya that Scotland would have a right to veto the transfer of any prisoner, including Mr. Megrahi.

“The negotiations over a prisoner transfer agreement were part of a wider agreement for the normalization of relations with Libya as part of bringing them into the international community,” Mr. Straw said, adding that the agreement’s terms were “academic,” because Mr. Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds.

The statement did not comment on the authenticity of the letters published by The Sunday Times.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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