Merged [Ed] Convicted Lockerbie bomber released

scissorhands said:
This explains a lot about your problems with understanding press reports.
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Associated Press headline on Yahoo

Michael Jackson death ruled a homicide

I'm obviously reading that wrong but I'm buggered if I see how.
 
Nogbad said:
Associated Press headline on Yahoo

Michael Jackson death ruled a homicide

I'm obviously reading that wrong but I'm buggered if I see how.
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It may be correct.
I dont know, if so then its probably been engineered by the SNP to take the heat off proceedings.
:)
 
Nogbad said:
Associated Press headline on Yahoo

Michael Jackson death ruled a homicide

I'm obviously reading that wrong but I'm buggered if I see how.
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Not a murder. Think "culpable homicide". His blockhead of a doctor was giving him all sorts of restricted drugs as sleeping aids, and eventually injected 25mg propofol (also known as "milk of amnesia", an intravenous anaesthetic agent, what you'd get for induction of anaesthesia if you had surgery) at his request. On top of God knows what else, but including valium.

This is pharmacological insanity, and could certainly be classed culpable homicide.

No doubt there will be a thread on this.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Top item on tonight's main TV news, bumping Megrahi into second place. Might have been new revelations about old events, but they did say something about the Obama administration.

Ah, there we go.

Rolfe.
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There was something about the British government involving torture only two weeks ago....I don't know what could have bumped that into second place back then...Now where is that....Oh, here it is:


"Head Of Britain's MI6 Defends Against Torture Accusations "

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/world/europe/11britain.html

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=22487
 
Jime Swire, who represents the UK victims of Lockerbie, is in today's Herald supporting the decision to release Megrahi. Can't see a copy online yet.

www.theherald.co.uk
 
I've been noticing something interesting about the media coverage.

When Megrahi first landed at Tripoli, all we had were long shots and it was hard to see what he looked like or what was going on. Later, some better and more closeup shots emerged. There are a number of these doing the rounds.

There is one shot, taken just at the moment when Gadaffi's son raises Megrahi's arm above his head and shakes it, where Megrahi looks up and smiles at the crowd. He looks relatively well in that shot, and at first that was the one being shown.

However, certainly on the BBC and C4, what has been shown this week are shots from the following few minutes where Megrahi was helped down the steps and on to the tarmac. He looks much much worse in these pictures, tired and drawn and a lot older than 57. Both pictures are true of course, but do you choose the one snapped at the moment he saw the crowd and smiled, or the ones where he seems to be struggling to stay on his feet? Editorial choice.

This morning Good Morning Scotland (radio) started a phone-in programme about the decision. This was prompted by Ian Grey in parliament yesterday saying that a "silent majority" of Scots opposed the decision, which was followed by quite a lot of people contacting media outlets and saying that they must have been out when Mr. Grey came to ask their opinion, and in fact he was wrong. I was at work by the time the main phone-in started, but in the preamble they invited three people to come on air and give their views. Two for release, one against. The later preamble said they'd had a lot of calls from people who had been against the decision at the beginning, but after having read discussion about the issues and heard Kenny McAskill's statement to parliament they now supported him.

Monday's Herald letters page (which has the shot of Megrahi looking good, in fact) deals with nothing else. Nine letters in favour of release, two against. And I just noticed the two against are from Georgia and Texas, respectively. (Cartoon on the opposite page of McAskill getting into a taxi and saying "Torra Borra Mountains".)

Today's paper, and again only two letters against - one from Arizona and one from California. Twelve letters in favour this time, including one from Florida and one from Massachusetts. (Cartoon of a group of people rejoicing with their hands in the air, waving saltires and placards with McAskill's face on them, and releasing SNP balloons. The caption says "And meanwhile at 10 Downing Street....")

The BBC and the Herald both have the reputation of providing a balanced selection of listeners'/readers' views. If this is indeed the case, either Ian Grey has badly misjudged the public mood, or I've never known an outraged majority stay quite so silent.

Rolfe.
 
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It is a funny definition of friendship if it only lasts so long as one party does what the other wants.
 
The main west of Scotland quality broadsheet has published a large number of letters about this, as I said. The vast majority supporting the decision to grant compassionate release, and the only dissenting letters were from US addresses (as were some of the supporting ones). Go to www.theherald.co.uk to see many articles as well as the letters, including an article by the father of one of the victims.

Some of the letters have interesting points that seem to provide more information than has been covered in the main articles, so I thought I'd provide a few quotes.

Thomas McLaughlin said:
Details of that appeal have begun to enter the public domain. They make devastating reading. They include deliberately undisclosed evidence at the original trial; alleged tampering with evidence and payment of a £2m bribe to a key witness. Most devastatingly, in 1989 the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) was convinced that Iran, not Libya, was involved - information not disclosed to the three Scottish judges at Camp Zeist in 2001. And much more, all of it detrimental to the Crown case against Megrahi. [....]

Now its [the FBI's] director, Robert Mueller, attacks a humane Scottish Justice Secretary for compassion to a man Mueller must know is innocent of the crime. It defies belief that he was not aware of the DIA's conclusion of September 24, 1989, reproduced in Megrahi's appeal submission, but which no Scottish judge has seen.

"The bombing of the Pan Am flight," it states, "was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran's former interior minister."

It goes on to say that the job was contracted out to Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command for $1m. A second DIA memo, in December 1989, specifically discounts Libyan involvement. [....]
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Dr. Rachel Cave said:
It is indeed a bitter pill for the families of those who died at Lockerbie to see that Megrahi was welcomed back home as a hero. But those who welcomed him were waving Scottish flags, not burning them.

In my opinion, his release has done more to reduce the threat of terrorist activity by Muslim activists than all the armed intervention in the last decade. For the first time that I can recall, I have seen a government carry out a genuine, honest, unselfish act of goodwill in accordance with the democratic principles we are all supposed to believe in.
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Bashir Maan said:
It was hoped that, under President Barack Obama, the US would give up a cowboy approach and adopt sensitive policies towards other nations.

However, it appears that the US is still following the "if you are not with us you are against us" approach, even against the nations that have been good friends.

It is strange that one just and humane act by the Scottish Government has enraged the US so that it has put its long association with Scotland to one side and forgotten the sacrifices made by so many Scottish soldiers fighting in the wars against terrorism.

This shows the US has no principles. It has only interests.
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Andy Wightman said:
It is quite unprecedented and totally out of order for the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, to attack Scottish Ministers over the release of the Lockerbie bomber and to ask "where is the justice?". [....]

Mr MacAskill was acting under powers conferred on him by law which states that he may release a prisoner on licence if satisfied there are compassionate grounds for release. Megrahi was entitled to have his application considered, just like another other prisoner. [....]

As The Herald reported on Saturday, since 2000, in Scotland there have been 31 applications for compassionate release and, of those, all but seven have been granted. Those seven were refused because they did not fulfil the criteria as judged by the relevant professionals. Megrahi's application was the sixth to come before Mr MacAskill as Justice Secretary and, like the other five, and like all the others that met the criteria, this one was granted.

For Mr MacAskill to have refused a competent application would have been to treat Megrahi differently to other prisoners. Much of US opinion appears to argue that Megrahi should have been treated differently because of the nature of his crime and that is understandable. It is an attitude, however, that fails to acknowledge that everyone, including a prisoner such as Megrahi, is entitled to equality of treatment under the law. Moreover, given that the arguments against release from Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, and others were essentially political, it would have been even more unjust to have refused compassionate release when justice is meant to be independent of politics - an important characteristic of a democracy which some US citizens and politicians in the UK would do well to remember.

Thus, there would have been more to worry about had Megrahi been refused compassionate release.

Political interference in the judicial system is the mark of dictators such as Colonel Gaddafi. We don't want that in Scotland and Mr Mueller is wrong to argue that the decision makes a mockery of the rule of law.

It does precisely the opposite. It upholds the rule of law in the face of political pressure.
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Linda Carmichael said:
I was deeply moved to be reminded that the Scottish system allows for compassionate release of a dying prisoner. America is not in a position to point out the skelf in Scotland's eye while it has an enormous plank in its own.

There are some 2.5 million people in American jails, 80% of them people of colour, many of them languishing in inhumane confinement for decades with no due process simply because it is a more economic model. Scotland is bigger than America in its level of political sophistication and the humanitarianism of its justice system. It should not crumble under bullying tactics.
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Dwyn M Mounger said:
I'm one American who commends Kenny MacAskill for the compassionate release of Megrahi. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

The decision lies in the finest tradition of the moderate, theistic wing of the Scottish Enlightenment. It is sad that so many people, in both the UK and the US miss the point. [....]

Who knows but that the freeing of Megrahi to die soon at home won't be the key to begin the process of true peace in the Middle East? That region continues to live almost solely by the lex talionis ("eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth"). Scotland's example might well make both Israel and the Arab states pause and, perhaps, change.

Generally, the world sees such compassion as weakness and scorns it in anger and contempt. Hence the thunder by some Americans about boycotting Scotland. Yet only compassion and non-violence are the true answers to achieving and preserving lasting peace in the Middle East and the world.
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Ian A D Mann said:
In expressing his full support of the Scottish judicial system, Mr MacAskill implicitly accepted that the decision was correct and that Megrahi was, indeed, guilty of the appalling crime. Many in Scotland and beyond are not convinced this is correct, and it is a great pity that the new evidence now available will not be made public.

The detailed report of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission identified no fewer than six grounds on which the Camp Zeist verdict might be unsafe, including US bribery of the principal identification witness, doubts about the source of the timer device and the suppression of critical security documents charging Iran and Syria with responsibility for the atrocity.
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Professor Ian Brown said:
Kenny MacAskill is accused of political naivety because, in his quasi-judicial role, he considered the evidence and came to the conclusion to which his legal training led him, and did not allow that process to be politically swayed. He could not control what use others made of his decision. How could he have second-guessed all those different personal and political reactions anyway? What role could such political input rightly have had in a judicial process? [....]

Perhaps to work according to personal and legal principle is naive. But do we really want the alternatives, however supposedly sophisticated? While I have every sympathy for the bereaved of Lockerbie, I am, to be honest, rather proud of Mr MacAskill and our system for the way he reached, without undue rush, his humane decision. I don't know for whom opportunistic politicians speak, but I am sure they don't speak for Scotland.
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David T Reid said:
The views of those who live in the US, whether they are of Scottish origin or not, are not really relevant. Americans would be the first to be outraged if we tried to tell them how to treat prisoners in their jails.
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Anne Rado said:
Do the other political parties really believe we should cringe and kowtow to the Americans just because they are rich and powerful, and just might stop visiting us for a while?

Of course I empathise with all those families that lost relatives in the atrocity. But even they are divided on the verdict, especially those who are aware of the questionable nature of the verdict, which most Americans are not.

Libyans, on the other hand, will be well aware of it. So, deplorable as it might seem, it is hardly surprising that they gave Megrahi a noisy welcome home. I would like to suggest that flying the saltire in Tripoli was probably intended as a gesture of friendship and thanks. If insult had been the motive, the flag would have been burned.
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Susan Williams said:
Today I am ashamed and let down by the opportunistic political posturing of MSPs in the face of an irreversible decision. It is this rather than any number of saltires flown in Tripoli that will make us the laughing stock of the world.
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When looking for the online text of Monday's and Tuesday's letters, I saw that Wednesday's letters page had also been published a couple of hours early.

The spread of these letters was:
In favour of compassionate release: 9
Against: 3 (Minnesota, Auckland and Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire)
No opinion expressed: 4

So far, only one of the five "against" letters over the three days has actually come from an address in Scotland.

Dr Christopher Mason said:
I wish to state, as a Liberal Democrat, that I think Kenny MacAskill's decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on licence was right. I believe Mr MacAskill when he says he was not party to any political or commercial deal, and that he did not seek to persuade Megrahi to withdraw his second appeal. [....]

If the Conservatives want to ask the Prime Minister a really challenging question about this affair, they should ask him why the Foreign Secretary repeatedly acted to hinder the progress of Megrahi's second appeal, and why he was so anxious to keep out of the proceedings the papers he said were vital to the security interests of the UK and an unnamed foreign power. [....]

The SCCRC, in effect, said the Court of Appeal should consider whether the circumstantial evidence on which Megrahi was convicted was reliable. We do not know what the court would have ruled. If it had quashed the conviction, there would have had to be an investigation into how unreliable evidence had been brought into the original trial. Was it just an unfortunate accident? Or was it deliberately procured? These are appalling questions. It is leaving them unresolved that brings shame on Scotland.
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Dr Alexander S Waugh said:
As a Liberal Democrat party member, I may be breaking ranks, but I can only answer in the affirmative the core question about the political or quasi-judicial decision of Kenny MacAskill to release Megrahi; that is, did Mr MacAskill take the right decision and for the right reason (compassion)? [....]

As for criticisms from the US, I would suggest that successive regimes there are in no position to challenge the Scottish justice system. The US federally and in 37 of its states continues to practise the barbarity of capital punishment. There is also a gun culture and a lack of even-handedness in the administration of justice. The US regimes have also condoned the use of torture in interrogating terrorist suspects, a procedure backed, in a recent opinion poll, by a significant percentage of US citizens, including a majority of Republican voters.

I would suggest that priority should now be given to answering the many unanswered questions about the mass murder at Lockerbie in 1988, given the view of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission that there may have been a miscarriage of justice in Megrahi's case. And I would support suggestions that decisions on prisoner release should be taken judicially rather than politically or quasi-judicially.
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Bill Brown said:
I am troubled to read so much hysterical nail-biting about Scotland possibly having offended the American people by releasing a dying man. [....]

In 2000, America was rated third top in the countries that execute criminals, though by 2008 Amnesty International calculated it had slipped to eighth position. Hardly a nation whose characteristics we should defer to in a moral debate.
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Alistair Sinclair said:
I note the Americans are calling for a boycott of Scottish goods. I don't hear a similar demand to boycott Libyan oil.

A few years ago, sanctions were lifted against Libya, and Colonel Gaddafi was readmitted to the international community, supposedly for renouncing weapons of mass destruction.

Could this decision have had anything to do with the fact that the 25-year lease to operate Libya's nationalised oilfields was expiring and America was in negotiations for a further term, which was granted?
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Professor James Mitchell said:
Two nations separated by a common language" came to mind on reading FBI director Robert Mueller's letter to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill ("FBI leads attack on outrageous' decision", The Herald, August 25).

The Scottish influence on American constitutionalism might lead to an expectation that there should be some appreciation of the shared constitutional values between our nations. Sadly, although the language is recognisable, the gulf in understanding is extraordinary. That is the generous interpretation. Mueller's factual errors are shocking and suggest that tawdry motives lie behind his letter's release.

Mr Mueller's effort to present himself as more central to the conviction of Megrahi than he was borders on the dishonest. He was not in charge of the investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991. American involvement was significant but this case was conducted through the Scottish system.

But his reference to the "conviction by jury", of a decision made by three senior judges, exposes a cavalier attitude to accuracy that raises serious questions about the letter. [....]

It cheapens politics to accuse those with whom you disagree of "making a mockery of the emotions, passions and pathos of all those affected by the Lockerbie tragedy". The idea that Mr MacAskill did any such thing is outrageous.

Mr Mueller need not have sent this letter to American families directly affected by the atrocity. Was his motive really to help the families? It can only have caused hurt and encouraged the false view that this decision was made without due care and attention when, as the gross errors in his letter show, it was he who has failed to take care in presenting his views.

Initially, it appeared that the decision on Megrahi would be a test of the Scottish Government. In the event, it has tested many others, too. The temptation to play the populist card, to cheapen politics in making unwarranted accusations has proved too great for too many. Ill- considered and factually inaccurate populism, designed solely to diminish confidence in the process by which the decision on Megrahi was made, adds nothing to what is a highly sensitive debate.

If Mr Mueller believes that such an irresponsible intervention eases the pain for those American families devastated by the events at Lockerbie, he must rethink his position. Disagreeing with the decision on Megrahi is one thing. Misrepresenting the process by which that decision was reached is quite another.

In any constitutional order, process is important. We must be governed by rules, not by emotions. Mr Mueller would be wise in future to take a lesson in this from Mr MacAskill.
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Another letter also notes that Ian Grey seems to be wrong about the "silent majority" of Scots opposing Megrahi's release. By the spread of the letters published (30 in favour, 5 against, only one of these from Scotland), either that majority has been gagged, or it doesn't exist.

Rolfe.
 
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Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Scottish courts that actually serve a life sentence rivals Nessie for mythology. Jimmy Boyle was already released and so will murders Robert Black, Edith McAlinden, and Andrew Walker. Why should the world be surprised by the release of Al Megrah?
 
They do serve a life sentence, Cicero. That does not mean they spend their whole lives in jail. This has already been explained
 
funk de fino said:
I note you did not answer my question. Why is it OK to pardon this Mass murderer on Nixons say so?
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Since Nixon didn't pardon Lt. Calley perhaps you could find another example that has anything to do with Scotland releasing Al Megrah. Calley was paroled after serving three and a half years.
 
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