§ 18. Mr. DalyellTo ask the Secretary of Stale for Scotland if he will make a statement on the discussions which the Lord Advocate has had with representatives of the German Government and the Bundeskriminalamt about the alleged use by Libyans or the Libyan People's Bureau of premises in East Berlin in relation to his inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonNo, Sir. Discussions by the Lord Advocate and his representatives with the authorities of other countries in criminal investigations are confidential.
§ Mr. DalyellWill the Government confirm that when the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), and President Reagan dispatched the bombers that had the effect of bombing the residential areas of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. Mr. Dalyell.
§ Mr. DalyellAgainst the evidence of the German authorities and the German police, and given that even the Israeli secret service thinks that others may have been involved, would it not at least be a sensible plan to talk to the Arab League about the very serious problem of Lockerbie and at least consider accepting the request to send British and American judges in the first instance to a trial under Libyan law?
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonI cannot comment on the evidence, but the Lord Advocate has made it extremely clear that the criminal proceedings are the result of an extremely brilliant, thorough and painstaking investigation by the Scottish police services and their colleagues, to whom I also pay tribute. We have rightly increased their allocations this year. The detailed points raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) are matters for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said.