(CNN) -- Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond says he is concerned that a U.S. senator is trying to create a link between oil giant BP and the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber.
"No one has produced any evidence of such a link because there is none," Salmond wrote Monday in a letter to U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who has been seeking answers about the release of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
Salmond said he watched "with concern" as Mendendez, in an interview Friday on British television, made an "attempt to insinuate such a link". He said Menendez used as evidence a letter from the chair of the Libyan British Business Council to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who made the decision to free the bomber last year.
"You have this letter because the Scottish government published this last year as part of our comprehensive issue of documentation related to the decision," Salmond said. "That being the case, you must also have seen the reply from Mr. MacAskill, also published, which stated that his decisions would be 'based on judicial grounds alone and economic and political considerations have no part in the process'".
Salmond added, "In order to avoid any suggestion of misrepresentation, I trust that you will include that fact in future references".
MacAskill released al Megrahi a year ago on compassionate grounds after doctors determined he was suffering from cancer and had three months to live. He has maintained the decision was his own. Despite the diagnosis, Al Megrahi remains alive.
Menendez plans to chair a U.S. Senate hearing in the coming months on the controversy surrounding al Megrahi's release. He and other senators from New York and New Jersey have repeatedly voiced suspicions that Scottish authorities released al Megrahi as part of a deal allowing oil giant BP to drill off the Libyan coast.
Scottish and British officials have declined invitations to testify at the hearing.
CNN
