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The US government has published a letter sent to First Minister Alex Salmond before the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted of murdering 270 people in 1988, and was freed on compassionate grounds last year because he is terminally ill.
It was claimed the US told Mr Salmond compassionate release was “preferable” to a transfer to a Libyan jail.
The letter confirmed this but it called for him to stay in Scotland if freed.

A nine-mile-long Iowa lake has disappeared after heavy rains led a dam holding back its waters to collapse.
Lake Delhi in eastern Iowa drained through the breached dam within hours on Saturday, flooding a nearby town.
Governor Chet Culver has vowed to aid homeowners whose once lakeside homes now overlook a stinking, muddy pit.
The authorities say curiousity seekers and treasure hunters venturing onto the vast, drying lake bed risk infection, broken bones and other hazards.
The 92-year-old Lake Delhi dam failed on Saturday, destroyed by rising water from the Maquoketa River.
“There was just more water than it was designed for,” Jon Garton, a dam safety engineer for the state Department of Natural Resources, told the Des Moines Register newspaper.
The subsequent flooding in the nearby town of Monticello caused millions of dollars' worth of damage.
Mr Culver has pledged federal and state aid to help rebuild the dam and restore the lake.
About 900 homes were built on the lake front.

Source:BBC

BP chief executive Tony Hayward is to leave the firm in October after sustained criticism of his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.
However, he is set to be nominated for a non-executive position on the board of the firm's Russian joint venture with TNK, a BP source said.
No details of his financial pay-off have yet been announced.
Mr Hayward is expected to be replaced by American colleague Bob Dudley, who is in charge of the clean-up operation.
Mr Dudley was the former chief of the BP-TNK joint venture, but was forced to leave Russia in 2008 amid a dispute with shareholders.
BP is set to reveal its latest results on Tuesday. The accounts will cover spill compensation and costs of up to 19bn, and may result in the worst quarterly loss for a UK firm.

New home sales in the US rose sharply in June compared with the previous month, but the pace of sales was the second slowest on record, official figures show.
The Commerce Department said sales rose to an annual rate of 330,000 in June from a revised 267,000 in May, which had been the worst month on record.
June's figure was the second-lowest rate since records began in 1963.

There are probably not many more effective statements of military might than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
The USS George Washington is one of the biggest warships in the world, made from 60,000 tons of steel and capable of carrying more than 6,000 crew members.
Just a few minutes spent on the flight deck is a demonstration of formidable, awesome power.
The double ear protection provided does not stop the feeling of the noise rumbling and resonating in the pit of your stomach, as the F-18 fighter planes are catapulted into flight.
That said, the participation of this ship in a joint naval exercise with South Korea off the coast of the peninsular is, in fact, not at all remarkable.
The two navies regularly train together and aircraft carriers, including the George Washington, have taken part in these kinds of drill before.
We have caught glimpses of some of the 20 or so other ships involved, sometimes up close, at other times far away on the horizon.
It is certainly a large exercise but the scale is not unprecedented.
There must then be other reasons why it seems to have taken on a special significance and attracted the attention of the world's media, a number of whom, like the BBC, have sent reporters for an up-close look at what is going on.
The first reason, of course, is timing.
Exercise Invincible Spirit, as it is being called, was in the planning before a multi-national investigation team blamed North Korea for the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan.Since then, Seoul and Washington's attempts to get the international community to agree to punish Pyongyang have been somewhat frustrated, in particular by Beijing.
So there is, perhaps, an advantage in presenting the exercise itself as a form of physical response and to claim that it is sending a strong “message of deterrence”.
Not that it does not have real strategic value for the allied fleet, allowing it, for example, to conduct anti-submarine drills, one area where North Korea's threat is now thought to be all too real.
The second reason for the heightened sense of drama is North Korea's reaction to these exercises.
It has been the familiar, colourful language, warning of “a sacred retaliatory war” and the danger of “waking a sleeping tiger”.
Many observers will dismiss such words as empty rhetoric, although China, for one, appears concerned about the risks that large-scale military drills may pose to regional stability.
It has been reluctant to punish North Korea, now and in the past, out of a fear of unpredictable consequences if the isolated, authoritarian state is pushed too hard.
But here is another bit of logic brought into sharp focus by the American and South Korean navies' show of strength.
North Korea is unlikely to risk a conflict it knows it would lose.
So perhaps both sides are in danger of overstating their cases.
North Korea has criticised the games as being an example of “gunboat diplomacy”

Although the wellhead is 200 miles away off the Louisiana shore, the Gulf's currents could easily bring oil or dispersant chemicals here to the fragile coral reefs and valuable fishing grounds off the west coast of Florida.
Climbing inside the tiny machine, on the rear deck of the research vessel Seward Johnson, must be similar to entering a spacecraft – cramped, switches everywhere and air-conditioning and carbon dioxide scrubbers emitting a loud hum.
I sit in the right-hand seat, chief pilot Don Liberatore is already in the left-hand one, both of us facing a clear, curved window of acrylic that's a reassuring 13cm thick.
Don is busy with his pre-launch checks, running through a series of procedures with the support team on the ship. I try to avoid knocking into the myriad levers and buttons clustered around me.
Then comes Don's safety briefing. The sub has an exemplary record: it's conducted thousands of successful dives. There's a second operator in a smaller chamber at the rear. But I feel a sense of dread as he explains what to do if both of them are incapacitated.
Flick these three switches in a row to blow the ballast tanks or, failing that, open this blue valve and then those two other valves and you'll shoot up.
I convince myself that I'll remember all this but in reality there's a maze of hundreds of switches and valves and I'm the sort of person who can't recall where I've put my own pen let alone rescue a stricken sub from the seabed.
Into the deep
Minutes later, hatch firmly closed, we are lifted off the deck. A giant crane hoists us into the air and down over the stern of the ship where we swing in the swell.

Rock band the Kings of Leon have been forced to end a concert early after pigeons defecated on them from the rafters of a US venue.
The rockers abandoned the gig in St Louis after three songs when bass player Jared Followill was hit in the mouth and face by pigeon droppings.
Drummer Nathan Followill later apologised to fans via Twitter, saying “it was too unsanitary to continue”.
Their publicist added the band found it hard to carry on after the incident.
“Jared was hit several times during the first two songs. On the third song, when he was hit in the cheek and some of it landed near his mouth, they couldn't deal [with it] any longer,” said Amy Mendelsohn.
“It's not only disgusting – it's a toxic hazard. They really tried to hang in there.”
Opening acts The Postelles and The Stills had also come off stage after their sets were covered in excrement.
The Grammy-winning band are due to continue their tour in Cleveland, Ohio on Monday evening following the incident at at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.
They are currently promoting their fourth album, Only By The Night, and are due to visit the UK later this summer.
Nashville brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared make up the group, along with their cousin Matthew on lead guitar.
Fans who were at the curtailed concert will be offered refunds.

Source:BBC

Share this page Casey Affleck denies sexual harassment claims Actor Casey Affleck has denied claims that he sexually harassed a woman working on his documentary about actor Joaquin Phoenix.
In a statement, he called the allegations by Amanda White “preposterous and without merit”.
Ms White, a producer on the film, has claimed Affleck refused to pay her salary because she would not spend the night in a hotel room with him.
Her 2m (1.3m) legal action was filed in Los Angeles on Friday.
Ms White said she was forced to endure inappropriate behaviour during production of Joaquin Phoenix: I'm Still Here, including “uninvited and unwelcome sexual advances in the workplace”.
Affleck's lawyer Michael Plonsker said: “Ms. White was terminated from the production over a year ago.
“She and her lawyers believe that this maliciously and erroneously filed complaint will cause the producers to succumb to her outrageous and baseless demands. She is mistaken.
“The complaint will be vigorously defended and cross-claims will be filed against her.”
I'm Still Here documents a year in the life of Phoenix after he announced his retirement from films in 2008, to pursue a new career as a hip hop musician.
Affleck is married to Phoenix's sister Summer.
He is best known for his Oscar-nominated role opposite Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and, more recently, as a psychotic small-town lawman in The Killer Inside Me.

Source:BBC

Share this page Closing arguments to begin in Rod Blagojevich trial Closing arguments are to begin in the corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Mr Blagojevich is accused of trying to use his office for personal gain – including an effort to sell President Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat – and attempted extortion.
The case turns largely on hours of conversations wire-tapped by the FBI.
The defence says Mr Blagojevich's talk was mere bluster, arguing prosecutors have not proven he committed crimes.
Mr Blagojevich, a Democrat, was ejected from office by the Illinois state legislature in January 2009.

British set-top box maker Pace is to buy US broadband technology firm 2Wire for 475m (307m).
Pace is the world's largest set-top box maker, overtaking Motorola in May.
It says the move will extend its customer reach from cable and satellite into the internet TV market.
Pace said that 2Wire, “with its expertise in the broadband residential gateway market, will enable us to address a full range of US operator requirements”.
It pointed out that 2Wire had established relationships with top-tier North American telecoms providers including AT&T.
Yorkshire-based Pace now feels that the 2Wire deal will now move it to number three in the global telecommunications home-hub market.
2Wire is owned by a consortium including Alcatel-Lucent, Telmex and Oak Investment Partners.
Pace makes set-top boxes for BSkyB, Canal+ and Comcast.
The 2Wire announcement comes as Pace revealed a 46% rise in first-half pretax profit, to 45.4m.

Source:BBC

The United States has condemned as “irresponsible” the leak of 90,000 military records, saying publication could threaten national security.
The documents released by the Wikileaks website include details of killings of Afghan civilians unreported until now.
Three news organisations had advance access to the records, which also show Nato concerns that Pakistan and Iran are helping the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has denied claims its intelligence agency backed the Taliban.

BP's chief executive Tony Hayward is expected to stand down following widespread criticism of his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
He is likely to be replaced by his American colleague, Bob Dudley, who has taken charge of the clean-up operation.
BP's board are to sign off accounts, which will cover spill compensation and costs of up to 19bn, and may result in the worst quarterly loss for a UK firm.
They are also likely to discuss terms of Mr Hayward's severance package.
A BP spokesman maintained Mr Hayward continued to have the “full support of the board and senior management” but a US government official quoted by the Associated Press, said senior figures in the company had already briefed them about a change of leadership at the oil multinational.
It is believed the terms of Mr Hayward's employment entitles him to a payout of at least 1m. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph is reporting his pension pot could be as much as 10.8m, resulting in an annual payment of about 584,000.
An engineer by training, Mr Hayward spent the past 28 years with BP and was a popular choice for the top job when Lord Browne stepped aside in 2007 .
But he will be seen to carry the can for the being at the helm for the worst year in the company's history.
Questions raised
When he became chief executive in 2007, the 53 year-old told journalists his number-one task was to focus “laser-like” on safety and reliability.
The explosion on the drilling rig off Louisiana on 20 April, which killed 11 workers and triggered the worst oil spill in the US, raised questions about his leadership.
Mr Hayward has been heavily criticised by residents of the Gulf coast and US politicians for his handling of the clean-up and for a series of gaffes, including saying that he “just wanted his life back” and that the Gulf of Mexico was a “big ocean” following the leak.
He was also taken to task for attending a sailing event off the Isle of Wight in June.
Mr Hayward was publicly rebuked by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month for “stonewalling” questions at a congressional hearing.
Journalist Tom Bower, who wrote a book called The Squeeze: Oil, Money and Greed in the 21st Century said Mr Hayward's departure was inevitable because he “hadn't changed the culture” at BP following previous accidents in the US.
“He knew what had to be done, but he didn't do it properly. He was too slow; he wasn't inspired; he wasn't focused enough,” said Mr Bower.
The man expected to replace Mr Hayward, BP Managing Director Mr Dudley, took over the day-to-day operations in the Gulf last month.Many say that, from a public relations point of view, Mr Dudley has the advantage of being American.
He grew up in Mississippi and, according to BP, has a “deep appreciation and affinity for the Gulf Coast”.
BP has lost 40% of its market capitalisation since the May spill.
The company's second quarter results due on Tuesday are expected to reveal a provision for the costs of the clean-up, compensation claims and fines to be paid.
Meanwhile, the official overseeing the US government response to the oil spill has meanwhile said the operation to plug the ruptured Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico permanently has been put back to allow more time for preparatory work.
Retired Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen said the last bit of pipe needed for the process would be put in place in the coming this week, with the actual plugging operation starting in the first week of August. A temporary cap has stopped oil from gushing for more than a week.

Source:BBC