Report: Blair made 6 trips to see Gadhafi

LONDON, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- After leaving office, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair held six meetings with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Five of the meetings occurred in the months before Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, was freed from a Scottish prison, the newspaper said.

In January 2009, Blair, who is employed by the U.S. firm JP Morgan as a consultant, went to Tripoli while the company was involved in negotiating a deal with the Libyan Investment Authority and Rusal, a Russian aluminum company owned by Oleg Deripaska.

A Blair spokesman said the former prime minister did not talk to Gadhafi about the Russian negotiations. While the two did discuss Megrahi, Blair understood his release was "a matter for the Scottish government."

Blair and Gadhafi discussed infrastructure development in Libya and the future of Africa, the spokesman said.