Lockerbie Bomber released

[Duke of Gloucester]

I am surprised there is no thread on this already - apologies if I have missed it.

BBC link

I simply can't understand why this man was released. There is a place for releasing prisoners on compassionate grounds when they are terminally ill and close to death. For example Ronnie Biggs was released earlier this month. BBC link re Mr Biggs. However each case needs to be treated on its merits. This person has been convicted for the murder of 270 people. In this case the compassion seems to have been shown to the perpertrator only and the feelings of the victims families have been ignored. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's reception in Libya will have been particularly painful; pain that could have been forseen and avoided.

There is an argument that he may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice but this should have no bearing on his compassionate release. This is a separate isssue that could have been expidited if he only had a few months to live.

So why did Kenny MacAskill agree to release him. I suspect he gave too much consideration to the convict and not enough thought to the victims' families and indulged in some muddled thinking about whether the conviction was safe. A huge mistake that is shaming to Scotland and the rest of the UK by association.

[Fragony]

I suspect there has been an exhange deal.

Anyway, welcome home, heartwarming http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=07e_1250836267

[Tribesman]

I simply can't understand why this man was released.

Its quite obvious , key witnesses have already testified on oath that they were paid to lie in the original trial.
The attempts by the government to limit the scope of the legal appeal and to suppress evidence had failed .
Britain(and America) would be made to look very very bad if this case went back to court...so a compasionate release saves face for them and by getting the scots to do it they can claim it wasn't them who backed down.

[Duke of Gloucester]

Its quite obvious , key witnesses have already testified on oath that they were paid to lie in the original trial.
The attempts by the government to limit the scope of the legal appeal and to suppress evidence had failed .
Britain(and America) would be made to look very very bad if this case went back to court...so a compasionate release saves face for them and by getting the scots to do it they can claim it wasn't them who backed down.

A possible explanation but there are three objections:

1. We British tend to back the courts' original decisions, especially in terrorism cases, well beyond the point where it is obvious there has been a miscarriage of justice without giving any thought to how "bad" we look. For example look at the Birmingham six if you want to see how we normally deal with such things.
2. If he only has three months to live it should be possible to draw things out long enough to make sure no court makes a decision.
3. Scottish authorities (especially the SNP) are not going to worry about making the Westminster government look bad - quite the reverse.

Whether the original conviction is safe or not will come out in the end. I don't think avoiding another appeal is will help in the end.

[Idaho]

It's an odd case for sure. When we start getting into the murky world of international 'intelligence' and security - who knows what is right or wrong. It's no suprise that conspiraloons are so prevalent when anything important that happens has their scheming and counter-scheming all over it.

Should he be released? God knows. Was the trial dodgy? Yes. Was he responsible? God knows.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I'm rather incensed at this. If he's guilty, he's spent about a year for every 34 victims.

Any links to info on the 'dodginess' of the trial?

CR

[Fragony]

Britain(and America) would be made to look very very bad if this case went back to court...so a compasionate release saves face for them and by getting the scots to do it they can claim it wasn't them who backed down.

That's a big if, why would this case go back to court, any new information?

[rory_20_uk]

On completely unrelated news, Libya has masses of oil and it is a source that doesn't rely on Russia or the Middle East...

In terms of reliability, I think Idaho has it nailed.

[rvg]

Its quite obvious , key witnesses have already testified on oath that they were paid to lie in the original trial.

Or they're actually lying now as opposed to back then.

[Rhyfelwyr]

The subject of this thread is probably the first political thing I've heard everyone in RL give an opinion on of late, normally they don't take an interest in politics. The attitude from what I see is pretty mixed, although few people feel to strongly about it over here, since he's going to die anyway.

Technically, I suppose if he was convicted of such a crime then he shoudln't be released. However, from what I've seen on the news (yes not exactly conclusive, but I wasn't even born when Lockerbie happened), the evidence against Megrahi was pretty dubious and apparently one guy was paid millions to give evidence against him and now lives in a mansion in Australia.

And so with that taken into consideration, I'm not too bothered about him being released, in fact I'm glad that he will get to go back to his homeland before he dies, he has just wasted most of his life in a prison just across the river from where I live for something that he maybe didn't even do.

[Tribesman]

That's a big if, why would this case go back to court, any new information?

This would have gone back to court because from the very day the verdict was delivered its reliablity was widely challenged.
The new information is the statements of the key witnessess being withdrawn and the forensic evidence being challenged by the very people who presented it in the first place.
The scottish commisions report on questionable issues relating to the conviction ran to 800 pages , which is why they rejected the Crowns attempts to block the appeal.

[scotchedpommes]

...the evidence against Megrahi was pretty dubious and apparently one guy was paid millions to give evidence against him and now lives in a mansion in Australia.

And so with that taken into consideration, I'm not too bothered about him being released, in fact I'm glad that he will get to go back to his homeland before he dies, he has just wasted most of his life in a prison just across the river from where I live for something that he maybe didn't even do.

I agree, for the most part. There's more to this though, obviously. [Aside from effects on business deals.] But he would be dead before any appeal cleared his name, though, so his decision to drop it in the deal to go home makes sense.

As for MacAskill? I don't believe he thought Megrahi was guilty, but other than that, he's most likely helped to maul the party. He didn't do himself any favours on Newsnight Scotland when all he seemingly wanted to do was hammer home points about lack of Government power. Can see where he was coming from, but nobody's going to take that from this episode.

On a positive note, from the strength of the negative coverage coming from the right-wing in the US, it looks like it wouldn't take much more for them to include us in some mock miniature axis of evil.

[Duke of Gloucester]

I suspect there has been an exhange deal.

Anyway, welcome home, heartwarming http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=07e_1250836267

So would I, if the release had been agreed by Jack Staw (UK secretary of state for justice). However the last thing Kenny MacAskill would want to do is to make things better for the UK government or the Labour Party. I can't see how he could make a deal that would benefit Scotland and exclude the rest of the UK. Neither do I see him responding to pressure from the Foreign Office - quite the reverse. However the decision is not popular in Scotland and may benefit relations between the UK government and Libya. He and his party take the hit in the opinion polls and the UK (which he does not want to be part of) get the benefit. All in all a strange decision.