One must wonder if Republicans will be standing up for British Petroleum and their profits after this latest headline: “BP lobbied U.K. ahead of Lockerbie bomber release.”

LONDON — BP confirmed Thursday that it had lobbied the British government over a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in late 2007 before the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.

The oil giant said it was concerned a slow resolution would impact an offshore drilling deal with Libya, but insisted it was not involved in discussions regarding actual al-Megrahi’s release.

“BP told the U.K. government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya,” BP said in a statement Thursday. “We were aware that this could have a negative impact on U.K. commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan government of BP’s exploration agreement.”

BP signed a $900 million exploration agreement with Libya in May 2007, the same month that Britain and Libya inked a memorandum of understanding that paved the way for al-Megrahi’s release from a Scottish prison.

Megrahi, the only person convicted over the 1988 bombing of a U.S. airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, was released last August on compassionate grounds after doctors said the 57-year-old was near death.

Nearly a year later, Megrahi, an alleged Libyan intelligence officer, is still alive.

The GOP is Ok with BP losing control of a deepwater rig in the Gulf of Mexico and spilling millions of gallons of oil. It’s somehow Obama’s fault, after all. Let’s see how they react to oil for terrorists. But they were fine with selling weapons to Iran, so maybe terrorism comes in second to the free market?

–WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles