Voldemort
08-22-2009, 03:02 PM
Telegraph View
The welcome that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi received as he returned to Libya was as distressing as it was disturbing. This is a man who was found guilty of murdering 270 people, and whose guilt was upheld on appeal. Over the course of the proceedings, eight judges found the evidence against him compelling, and more than sufficient to establish that he had been a critical part of the plot that led to the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. And yet in Libya, he was welcomed as a hero, not the despicable mass murderer that his trial established him to be.
Why was he allowed to go home after serving only a tiny portion of the minimum tariff of 27 years in prison which the court that convicted him imposed? Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice minister, who took the decision to free Megrahi, said that he did so on "compassionate" grounds. That invocation of compassion was particularly inappropriate, because the people who are owed compassion are those who lost friends and family members because of what Megrahi did. Strangely, they seem not to have counted in Mr MacAskill's calculations. The people best placed to judge whether mercy should be shown are those whose lives and loved ones suffered from the bombing. While some of them were eager for Megrahi to be released, a clear majority are implacably opposed to that step. The scenes at Tripoli airport have caused them enormous pain.
Why was it so much more important to Mr MacAskill to show compassion to Megrahi than to the relatives of the people he murdered? The difficulty in answering that question is one reason why so many people now wonder about the real reason that Megrahi is now a free man. Mr MacAskill insists the decision was his own, and emphatically denies that it was in any way influenced by pressure from the British government. Ministers in London are equally emphatic that they did not try to influence his decision, and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, stresses that it is a "slur" to suggest that the British Government had anything to do with Megrahi's release.
We accept Mr Miliband's insistence that he did not pressure the Scottish Minister of Justice to release Megrahi. But he was not in office in 2007, when Tony Blair signed a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator. As we report today, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has met several times with Colonel Gaddafi's son, including, most recently, at Nathaniel Rothschild's villa in Corfu. Saif Gaddafi himself has thanked the British as well as the Scottish administration for securing Megrahi's release, and has implied that lucrative trade deals will follow.
We may never know the know the identity of all of those involved in plotting the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103. But we can and should know the full truth about why the only individual who was ever bought to justice for that terrible crime has been freed. Our Government must be completely transparent about its role in the episode. Anything less will be a betrayal of the standards of justice, decency and humanity that ministers claim to uphold.
This is ridicules and shows that the Scottish Government cares more about relations with Libya than America.
The welcome that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi received as he returned to Libya was as distressing as it was disturbing. This is a man who was found guilty of murdering 270 people, and whose guilt was upheld on appeal. Over the course of the proceedings, eight judges found the evidence against him compelling, and more than sufficient to establish that he had been a critical part of the plot that led to the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. And yet in Libya, he was welcomed as a hero, not the despicable mass murderer that his trial established him to be.
Why was he allowed to go home after serving only a tiny portion of the minimum tariff of 27 years in prison which the court that convicted him imposed? Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice minister, who took the decision to free Megrahi, said that he did so on "compassionate" grounds. That invocation of compassion was particularly inappropriate, because the people who are owed compassion are those who lost friends and family members because of what Megrahi did. Strangely, they seem not to have counted in Mr MacAskill's calculations. The people best placed to judge whether mercy should be shown are those whose lives and loved ones suffered from the bombing. While some of them were eager for Megrahi to be released, a clear majority are implacably opposed to that step. The scenes at Tripoli airport have caused them enormous pain.
Why was it so much more important to Mr MacAskill to show compassion to Megrahi than to the relatives of the people he murdered? The difficulty in answering that question is one reason why so many people now wonder about the real reason that Megrahi is now a free man. Mr MacAskill insists the decision was his own, and emphatically denies that it was in any way influenced by pressure from the British government. Ministers in London are equally emphatic that they did not try to influence his decision, and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, stresses that it is a "slur" to suggest that the British Government had anything to do with Megrahi's release.
We accept Mr Miliband's insistence that he did not pressure the Scottish Minister of Justice to release Megrahi. But he was not in office in 2007, when Tony Blair signed a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator. As we report today, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has met several times with Colonel Gaddafi's son, including, most recently, at Nathaniel Rothschild's villa in Corfu. Saif Gaddafi himself has thanked the British as well as the Scottish administration for securing Megrahi's release, and has implied that lucrative trade deals will follow.
We may never know the know the identity of all of those involved in plotting the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103. But we can and should know the full truth about why the only individual who was ever bought to justice for that terrible crime has been freed. Our Government must be completely transparent about its role in the episode. Anything less will be a betrayal of the standards of justice, decency and humanity that ministers claim to uphold.
This is ridicules and shows that the Scottish Government cares more about relations with Libya than America.