Lockerbie Weighs On U.K.–U.S. Summit

At issue was pressure placed on Mr. Cameron from some U.S. political leaders to further investigate the circumstances surrounding last year's release of the Libyan man convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Mr. Cameron called the bomber the "biggest mass murderer" in British history, and said he and Mr. Obama were in "violent agreement" that his release was a mistake. But the prime minister rejected opening a new U.K. investigation into the release.

"I don't need an inquiry to tell me what was a bad decision. It was a bad decision," Mr. Cameron said in comments following his first official visit to the White House.

In a session marked by easy rapport and a discussion of the relative merits of their two nations' beer, the two leaders expressed common views on the war in Afghanistan, the drive for a Mideast peace agreement and the nuclear threat posed by Iran. They played down differences on matters such as how best to revive the economy.

But the public session also touched on the central role of Britain's BP PLC in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a connection that has surfaced between BP and a U.K. proposal on the release of Libyan prisoners.

Mr. Cameron faces pressure from some U.S. political leaders to further investigate the circumstances surrounding last year's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi from a Scottish prison. Mr. Megrahi was serving a life sentence for the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

Mr. Cameron told a joint news conference that he would ask government officials to comb their records to see if any further information needs to be released, even after completed investigations by the Scottish Parliament and the prior British government.

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