The pressure on Gordon Brown to disclose details of trade deals negotiated with Libya increased today when it emerged that three ministers visited the country in the 15 months leading up to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
Digby Jones, the then trade minister, travelled to Libya last May to speak to business representatives, the Cabinet Office confirmed.
The former health minister Dawn Primarolo conducted talks with the Libyan prime minister last November, and Bill Rammell, the then Foreign Office minister, held discussions with his Libyan counterparts in February.
Alan Johnson, the home secretary, also met Libyan health ministers at the World Health Assembly in Geneva last year during his time as health secretary.
The Libyan contacts – detailed in a ministerial statement released on 16 July and relating to all ministers' overseas travel – will fuel the row over the freeing of the terminally-ill , Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
Earlier this week, opposition parties said ministers had "serious questions" to answer after Saif Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, claimed the decision to release Megrahi was tied to a trade deal.
The business secretary, Lord Mandelson, dismissed the suggestion that Megrahi's case was on the table during talks as "offensive".
Brown has come under fire for his silence on whether he agreed with the decision of the Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to release the man convicted of the 1988 bombing on compassionate grounds.
The former deputy prime minister John Prescott yesterday became the first senior Labour figure to back MacAskill's decision.
Asked in a Sky News interview whether he had any objection to the decision to release Megrahi, Prescott said: "No, I don't have any objection.
"If the man is dying, if compassion is passed, as it is in the Scottish administration, and the medical authorities then gave proof to that effect as they did, then it's a decision for their legal authority.
"You know Scotland has always had a great deal more independence in its legal authority, going back many years, so we have to respect that decision, and I do."
His comments were seized on by the Scottish National party – which contrasted them with the stance of Labour in Scotland – and by the Tories, who said Brown should give his views on the release.
The decision has led 70% majority of Scots to believe the country's reputation abroad has suffered as a result of the decision, according to a YouGov poll for the Mail. Almost one-third of Scots want MacAskill to resign over the matter.
The poll also found support for Scottish independence had fallen in the wake of the furore over Megrahi's release.
The survey of 1,078 Scottish adults found that only 28% backed independence, down eight points in a year.
Commenting on the polling, Scotland's deputy first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said: "The justice secretary had to make a decision about Mr al-Megrahi.
"He had the courage to make the right decision for the right reasons, which attracts very substantial support in this poll.
"It will gather further support on that basis, because people recognise that Mr MacAskill upheld the due process of Scots law in difficult circumstances."
The justice secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday questioned whether MacAskill should have visited Megrahi in jail before coming to a decision.
"That was his decision," Straw said. "If you are asking me if I have ever visited a prisoner in jail who has applied for compassionate release, the answer to that is no."
Since the August 20 release of , who was convicted of planting a bomb on , there has been growing controversy surrounding the events which led to his release. Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in-flight in 1988 as the aircraft flew over , Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and eleven more on the ground. Al Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted of the bombing.
Kenny MacAskill 
In recent years, the British government has negotiated oil development deals with Libya. As part of the negotiations, at least three UK ministers traveled to Libya in the months leading up to Al Megrahi's release.

Leaked letters from UK   to his Scottish counterpart, , stated that it was in the "overwhelming national interests" of the UK to include Al Megrahi in prisoner transfer agreements which were part of the oil trade deals. These letters have lead to widespread speculation that the British government influenced the Scottish decision to release Al Megrahi.

Al Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds as he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. However, this diagnosis was called into question as '''' revealed that the health director of the , Dr. Andrew Fraser, relied on the advice of a  instead of an , when issuing his recommendation for release. 

When Al Megrahi returned to Libyan soil, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi thanked Gordon Brown and  for his release.

, the son of Muammar al-Gaddafi, has stated that during the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) phase the trade negotiations, the Al Megrahi case was not specifically named, yet it was implied.
Jack Straw
"The fight to get the prisoner transfer agreement lasted a long time and was very political, but I want to make clear that we didn't mention Mr Megrahi. At all times we talked about the PTA. It was obvious we were talking about him. We all knew that was what we were talking about," he said.

In Scotland, the release of Al Megrahi has caused significant debate. A poll conducted for the BBC by  found that 60% of Scots thought the  was wrong to allow the release. 68% believe the decision was made fore reasons that did not pertain to Al Megrahi's health.
Muammar al-Gaddafi 
"No one I think seriously believes we made any other decision except for the right reasons,"  Alex Salmond said on Wednesday. "I think it was the right decision. I also absolutely know it was for the right reasons."

"We didn't think that the Lockerbie decision should be linked to trade or oil decisions by anyone who looked at the coincidence that the prisoner transfer agreement was being negotiated at the same time as commercial contracts," Salmon also stated.

The  stated Monday that, "There was no deal over the release of al-Megrahi nor could there ever be, since all decisions were for the Scottish, not U.K. government."

"The central assertion in this story is completely untrue and deeply misleading,"  added.

Correspondence released on Tuesday by the UK government shows that Abdulati Alobidi, the Libyan minister to Europe warned of "catastrophic effects for the relationship between Libya and the UK," if Al Megrahi were to die in prison in Scotland.

When Salmond asked Straw what the national interests of the UK were, Jack Straw replied, "Having sponsored terrorist attacks in the past, it Libya is now an important partner in the fight against terrorism." Libya approved a large oil exploration contract to  within days of the letter.

Libyan officials have said that since al-Megrahi's return to Libya, his health has deteriorated. He was not part of the 40th anniversary celebrations for Gaddafi's coup d'état held on Tuesday.