Rolfe
Adult human female
Megrahi's (first) appeal was actually in progress when the 9/11 attacks happened. He described (in John Ashton's book) being utterly shocked by what had happened, but also realising in despair that the authorities would never acquit him now, because he was a Moslem accused of aircraft-related terrorism.
I don't know to what extent that is true, but it's certainly the case that there's a lot of blatant apologetics, plus fingers-in-ears-and-humming-real-loud, in the Opinion of the appeal court judges. Lord Osborne went from observing that it appeared it was impossible that an unaccompanied suitcase could have travelled on flight KM180, to endorsing a report that just said, well it must have happened anyway, "we have to bear in mind the Crown's case was that this was a criminal act". That one has always astounded me. You mean, it's fine for a court to decide something happened for which there is no evidence (and a lot of evidence saying it didn't happen) so long as we make sure we're alleging it was done by an unspecified "criminal act". What, really?
It also seems to be the position of everyone who got to know Megrahi personally that he was a normal guy and not a wild-eyed terrorist of any description. That was why he was moved from Barlinnie to Greenock - the high-security solitary confinement environment at Barlinnie was seen as absolutely incongruous for this obviously low-risk prisoner.
Rolfe.
I don't know to what extent that is true, but it's certainly the case that there's a lot of blatant apologetics, plus fingers-in-ears-and-humming-real-loud, in the Opinion of the appeal court judges. Lord Osborne went from observing that it appeared it was impossible that an unaccompanied suitcase could have travelled on flight KM180, to endorsing a report that just said, well it must have happened anyway, "we have to bear in mind the Crown's case was that this was a criminal act". That one has always astounded me. You mean, it's fine for a court to decide something happened for which there is no evidence (and a lot of evidence saying it didn't happen) so long as we make sure we're alleging it was done by an unspecified "criminal act". What, really?
It also seems to be the position of everyone who got to know Megrahi personally that he was a normal guy and not a wild-eyed terrorist of any description. That was why he was moved from Barlinnie to Greenock - the high-security solitary confinement environment at Barlinnie was seen as absolutely incongruous for this obviously low-risk prisoner.
Rolfe.
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