Former justice minister Kenny MacAskill has claimed that a coalition of terrorist states were behind the Lockerbie bombing.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning MacAskill stated governments and terrorist groups from three further states "carried out" the bombing.

MacAskill said: "This was state-sponsored terrorism. It was state-sponsored terrorism by several states -- Libya in particular -- but also by terrorist organisations and security organisations.

"I remember a former police officer saying to me 'it was a coalition of the willing'. The opposite side, perhaps, that went into Iraq with devastating consequences.

"But it was a coalition of the willing that involved Libya, involved Iran, involved no doubt Syria under Assad, involved the Palestinian terrorist organisations. They came together and they carried it out".

The former Scottish Government minister has authored a book about the terrorist attack which is to be released later this month. There have been calls for Police Scotland to investigate MacAskill over details in the book which they say may breach the Official Secrets Act in relation to a classified document held by the UK Government.

MacAskill accused the UK and US governments of "unbridled" hypocrisy in their condemnation of the 2009 release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

He said: "He [Megrahi] was a foot soldier in the service of Colonel Gaddafi. The hypocrisy here was unbridled.

"I met Megrahi briefly. He was a foot soldier. President Obama a few weeks before I released Megrahi met and shook hands with Colonel Gaddafi.

"Tony Blair and Gordon Brown embraced Colonel Gaddafi, entered into commercial deals, supplied him with advice -- both military and indeed armaments -- so if you are going to look at culpability I think let's look at those who dealt with the main man as opposed to those who dealt with a simple foot soldier in the service of the Libyan state."

The SNP politician, who stood down from Holyrood at the election, released Megrahi on "compassionate grounds" in August 2009 after the Libyan was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

Earlier in 2009 the Libyan government requested that Megrahi be transferred to the country under a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) as set out by the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984.

This request was rejected by MacAskill on the same day that he granted Megrahi release under "compassionate grounds".

MacAskill stated in a letter that his decision to reject the PTA was based on his lack of knowledge of discussions between the UK and US governments.

The letter stated: "[I did] not know what the exact nature of those discussions was, nor what may have been agreed between Governments."

However, the former justice secretary now states that he would have agreed to the PTA if the UK Government devolved more powers to Holyrood -- including those covering air weapons.

He said: "At the time, when the British were driving through a PTA with Libya predicated in getting Megrahi back because they were doing a deal with British Petroleum we made requests for some compensation and indeed for powers that were held by Westminster at the time."

He continued: "At the time of the matter -- it's laid out in the report by Gus O'Donnell the Cabinet secretary -- we asked if the British Government would compensate us for slopping out in Scottish prisons and indeed would take action to give us powers over air weapons. It refused"

Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. The bombing is the deadliest terrorist incident in British history with 270 dying in the attack.