Sir Sean Connery leaps to Alex Salmond`s defence

Sir Sean Connery, one of the doughtiest and most generous supporters of the SNP, says it's not Alex Salmond who should carry the can for the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, but Tony Blair - reports the Telegraph.

"I doubt we will ever know the full story, but it's clear this saga began with Blair and his meetings when he was still prime minister with Col Gaddafi," the 79-year-old actor tells me. "It's Blair who should now be made to account for this."

He said Salmond should be given credit for having the courage to immediately take questions from the press about the decision to free al Megrahi. "Alex didn't go into hiding for days like Gordon Brown and that says a lot," says Sir Sean.

He believes Salmond acted "honourably and independently", influenced by no one except, perhaps, Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, on Pan Am Flight 103, and who believed al Megrahi should be freed.

"What they were up to in London I have no idea. Brown at the very least should have made it a condition that the Libyans did not celebrate al Megrahi's release in the way that they did. That seems to me pretty basic politics."

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