Quote Originally Posted by Tribesman View Post
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.