Lockerbie deal plan denied

LONDON (Reuters) - The government denied on Wednesday it was hatching a deal to free the Libyan agent convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, after the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said he was confident of his early return.

Saif al-Islam told French newspaper Le Monde there was a link between the case of the jailed agent, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, and Libya's freeing last month of six foreign medics convicted of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV.

"We will soon have an extradition agreement with Britain," Islam was quoted as saying, adding Libyan officials had been in London to talk about the case around a month ago.

He said Libya had "established a link" between Megrahi's case and that of the medics, whose release cleared the way for improved ties between the north African state and the European Union.

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said no such link existed.

"Any decision on Mr Megrahi would be a matter for the Scottish courts and the Scottish authorities. There is no deal being done," the spokesman said.

Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of the bombing of a Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which killed 270 people. He is serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison but in June won the right to launch an appeal.

Weeks earlier, Britain had been forced to issue a round of denials of his imminent release after acknowledging it was working on a judicial agreement with Libya covering legal cooperation, extradition and prisoner transfer.

Scotland's premier and British officials have denied that agreement would have any bearing on Megrahi's case.

Gaddafi's son Islam told Reuters in an interview earlier this week that Libya was confident it would be proved innocent of the Lockerbie airliner bombing and that its priority was now the release of Megrahi.