Watching the coverage from the USA was cringe-worthy. It reminded Scotland of just how much credence should be put on Cameron's recent promises to treat Scotland with respect, and to deal respectfully with the Scottish government. He was doing it for party-political advantage of course, but it remains to be seen how that will work out for him.
I note that Robert Black has collected a number of the best press articles about the issue on his blog. It seems that thoughtful commentators are beginning to work a few things out. It's worth a read.
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html
Front-page newspaper headlines today are certainly about something completely different - a mortgage scandal involving the Clydesdale Bank gets a full-page splash. However, Lockerbie is certainly up there, with a side-bar pointer to
articles taking up
most of page 3, and a
comment article.
The comment column makes some pertinent points.
Brian Currie said:
Comments by the hitherto unknown backbencher Daniel Kawczynski on the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing suggest that the Scottish justice system and those in charge of it are somehow answerable to Westminster. Kawczynski was educated at Stirling University but perhaps he doesn’t realise the extent of the Scottish Government’s authority and maybe he is unaware that Scotland has its own judicial system.
But as chair of Westminster’s all-party committee on Libya he should know there have been two inquiries into the decision by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
A Scottish Parliament inquiry and another by Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Select Committee were clear in their conclusions, yet Kawczynski has written to David Cameron asking for Scottish Ministers to be held to account. Since Cameron can’t do this, perhaps he’s just trying to catch the PM’s eye in the hope of promotion.
It seems odd that a man who called for Megrahi to be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip chairs a committee whose aim is to promote and understand the culture, history and politics of Libya and engage in relations between that country’s legislature and the UK’s.
He's right of course. There was some self-righteous posturing from Labour and Conservative politicians at the time, and enquiries were conducted. While the complainers didn't like it, they had to admit everything was done by the book. Kawczynski is being particularly hypocritical, because in 2007-09 he was among the forefront of the Westminster politicians trying to force the Scottish government to use Megrahi to advance political/commercial interests in the Middle East, which the Scottish government refused to do.
The correspondent also has some harsh words about US hypocrisy.
The Senators should surely grasp the concept of devolved powers and be able to distinguish between Prisoner Transfer Agreements between Westminster and Libya and the compassionate grounds on which the Scottish Government’s Justice Secretary based his decision.
With BP a dirty word in the States after the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill there is an element of playing to the gallery. Many Americans have conveniently forgotten that the company is as much American as British and that jobs, and investments, in the US are in jeopardy if the company is mortally damaged.
Or perhaps they would just like some of the American energy companies, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, which have forged links with Colonel Gaddafi’s regime, capitalise on BP’s misfortune.
More than 50 US companies are reported to have signed contracts with Libya compared to four from the UK and the smell coming from the States isn’t just oil pollution – it’s the reek of hypocrisy.
These guys operate in a Federal system, and as politicians should be able to distinguish between diiffreent jurisdictions and different legal processes. But all we hear about is what they
imagine happened, which is so wide of the mark as to be on another planet. It does look like simple posturing, combined with a desire to draw attention away from US commercial involvement with Libya.
There are also
nine readers' letters taking up the bulk of the correspondence column. You can read them for yourselves, but I'll summarise the points made.
- Doubts expressed as to the conviction on "flimsy evidence", comparing Megrahi's sentence to the medal given to the captain of the Vincennes, and condemnation of the bandwagon of politicians looking for personal advantage out of the affair.
- A correspondent whose wife was given three months to live, but who survived for 13 months, asking what makes the American politicians and David Miliband cancer experts.
- Support for the compassionate release system in general and in this case, and telling US and Westminster politicans to keep out of it.
- This letter also mentions the Vincennes incident, but states that the Lockerbie bombing was in fact revenge for this "barbaric act". Again, the medal given to the captain is highlighted.
- This letter majors on the appeal, and the six grounds for believing that Megrahi's conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Mentions Hans Kochler's reports, and that political and legal figures don't want this aired in a court of law.
- Calls for the Scottish government to summon Miliband, Clinton and the four senators to Holyrood to answer for their allegations, commenting that such a summons is just as valid in international law.
- "I am fed up with the US assumption that it has the right to interfere with and dictate to the rest of the world." The writer calls for Scots to rally behind the "honourable man who is in charge of justice in this country."
- Points out that British citizens were killed at Lockerbie just as US citizens were, and that both US and British citizens were also killed in the Twin Towers. "I wonder if the US would be happy if the UK called for an investigation into the way the process of law had been handled and started asked searching questions about US intelligence being caught sleeping in both cases."
- "Megrahi [....] will certainly die as a result of his affliction and it would have been terrible if, lacking compassion, we had allowed that to happen in a Scottish jail."
That is nine out of nine supporting the decision to release Megrahi. Most are exceedingly displeased by the behaviour of both the US and UK politicians. In addition, three of the letters expressed doubts about Megrahi's guilt (one in fact completely denied his guilt). You may remember that in another thread last August, I linked to similar collections of readers' letters with a rather similar spread of opinion.
Caustic Logic, the next time you see someone on a US forum carrying on about how ordinary Scots all deplore Megrahi's release, that would be a good page to link them to.
Rolfe.
.