A delegation of US senate officials are due to holding a series of meetings with "Scottish justice officials" today in preparation for a forthcoming series of hearings by the US senate's foreign relations committee.

The committee originally planned to call Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond to account for percieved connections between the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and lobbying by BP for lucrative oil contracts in Libya.

The investigators are preparing a report for which is due to hold a hearing on Capitol Hill later this month.

Neither MacAskill or Salmond are scheduled to meet with the team, representing Senator Robert Menendez. However it has not been revealed which "justice officials" they will meet with, or what role those officials may have played in the release of Megrahi or the aborted appeal process.

US Senators Robert Menendez, Kirstin Gillibrand, Frank Lautenberg and Charles Schumer have so far failed to respond to an invitation to back an international petition calling for a full review of the entire circumstances of the Pan Am 103 event and its judicial aftermath.