Should convicted Libyan terrorist have been released?

Should convicted Libyan terrorist have been released?

  • Yes. He is a dying man and we should show compassion as a result.

    Votes: 11 11.5%

  • Yes. Such are the doubts over his conviction, and given that he will die before any appeal he shoul

    Votes: 20 20.8%

  • Yes, but only under a prisoner transfer with strict rules over media access.

    Votes: 4 4.2%

  • No. Regardless of the legal considerations on the specific case, this hands a propaganda victory to

    Votes: 7 7.3%

  • No. He is legally guilty for the deaths of 270 people and should serve his sentence fully.

    Votes: 51 53.1%

  • Any other opinion, specify below!

    Votes: 3 3.1%
  • Total voters
    96
andyandy said:
Second, there are ways of showing compassion without complete release.
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I have a better idea.

How about we let him rot in his cell and show no compassion whatsoever?


The entire point of compassion is the exact reason he doesn't deserve any.
 
andyandy said:
Leaving to one side questions as to whether or not he is actually guilty (I don't know enough about the legal case itself) I don't think that he should have been released. It is quite a complex situation however.

Firstly, assuming that he is guilty, he really hasn't spent that long in jail. If it was the same situation but with the chap already having served (say) 30 years already, then I might be more amenable to a compassionate release.

Second, there are ways of showing compassion without complete release. We could have set up a house arrest in Scotland which would have allowed close family time to spend with their dying relative. We could have arranged a prisoner transfer to Libya, where he would serve out the remainder of his sentence close to his family.

Thirdly, you can't separate the individual considerations from the political ramifications of the release. The scenes at the Libyan airport were pretty appalling. Cheering crowds, waving flags, triumphant arms aloft and even confetti for heavens sake! This is still a man who has been found legally guilty of responsibility for killing 270 people, likely at the behest of the same political leader who is now smiling and waving with him for the cameras. It is hard to imagine a more distasteful image. Certainly it appears as a propaganda coup for the Libyan government and a public relations own goal by Scotland.
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Well put.
 
lionking said:
And didn't he look better getting off the plane than getting on?
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It's the reverse of the mafia Don who suddenly becomes too sick to stand trial once arrested and charged.

It will be interesting to see how long he actually lives. Prostate cancer is usually VERY treatable and has a high 5-year survival rate.

The hero's welcome was sickening.
 
Well, he was diagnosed in an NHS hospital, and treated. The specialists have said his cancer is very aggressive, and is no longer responding to treatment. The cancer specialist who was interviewed on TV about this is a hugely respected senior consultant.

When we finally got a look at Megrahi after he got to Tripoli, I was shocked by how sick he looked. He's little older than I am, and he looked elderly. In fact, the reason I was shocked is that he looked exactly like my cousin's husband who died of prostate cancer about ten years ago. He wasn't diagnosed because he didn't go to his doctor until he was suffering from back pain. Which was of course way too late. This one looks to be going exactly the same way.

You could use this as an example to recommend that the NHS introduce routine screening for PSA, and you could have a point, although such screening programmes are not without their problems. However, there's no reason to believe that Megrahi hasn't got exactly what Prof. Karol Sikora says he has.

I can understand why you felt sickened by the "hero's welcome". However, bear in mind that nobody in that crowd would have believed he blew up the plane. Hell, half the population of Scotland don't believe he blew up the plane! The Libyan welcoming party saw a compatriot who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, by a foreign power which deliberately framed him. If you'd been in their position, wouldn't you have cheered, even if you'd been told not to?

Rolfe.
 
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Rolfe said:
Well, he was diagnosed in an NHS hospital, and treated. The specialists have said his cancer is very aggressive, and is no longer responding to treatment. The cancer specialist who was interviewed on TV about this is a hugely respected senior consultant.

When we finally got a look at Megrahi after he got to Tripoli, I was shocked by how sick he looked. He's little older than I am, and he looked elderly. In fact, the reason I was shocked is that he looked exactly like my cousin's husband who died of prostate cancer about ten years ago. He wasn't diagnosed because he didn't go to his doctor until he was suffering from back pain. Which was of course way too late. This one looks to be going exactly the same way.

You could use this as an example to recommend that the NHS introduce routine screening for PSA, and you could have a point, although such screening programmes are not without their problems. However, there's no reason to believe that Megrahi hasn't got exactly what Prof. Karol Sikora says he has.

I can understand why you felt sickened by the "hero's welcome". However, bear in mind that nobody in that crowd would have believed he blew up the plane. Hell, half the population of Scotland don't believe he blew up the plane! The Libyan welcoming party saw a compatriot who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, by a foreign power which deliberately framed him. If you'd been in their position, wouldn't you have cheered, even if you'd been told not to?

Rolfe.
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He was convicted in a Scottish court (what has changed since then?) and sentenced "at least 27 years". Pardon me if I didn't see an asterix in that sentence. I don't know what the cheering crowd believed, some may have thought he was innocent. Some may have been cheering the deed, just like Samir Kuntar is now a Lebanese, Syrian, and Iranian national hero for bashing in the head of a 4 year old Israeli child.

Thoroughly sickening, and you may well think of yourselves as compassionate but the overwhelming mood here is you've been played for fools.
 
Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion.

I'm not familiar with the other example you refer to.

Rolfe.
 
I think I'll take the odd position that the Scottish government was in a better place to make an informed decision than me about this guy.

Of course, Fox News is declaring this a nightmare for Obama (?) and how evil the guy is without mentioning the claims of innocence... So maybe I will say it was a good decision :p .
 
The thing is, almost the last thing the SNP wants to do is hack off the US government. In just over a year, it hopes to have a referendum on independence, and if that goes well, then the last thing Scotland needs while negotiating independence is the opposition of the USA.

I believe that releasing Megrahi was seen as the right thing to do, so much so that it was done even though it carried potentially damaging political consequences.

Rolfe.
 
In the last decade there have been just 30 requests for compassionate release in Scotland, 23 which were granted. I can only imagine that the 7 denials were for eating live babies or something.
 
Rolfe said:
Megrahi's involvement in this was as a low-level operative. He didn't decide out of his own little head to blow up an airliner. He didn't come up with the plan all by himself.
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Rolfe, thanks for the links. I did learn a lot about this case, and there does seem to be a fair bit of shady business... Angry people aren't above scapegoating the people easiest to catch.
Of course I still stand by my opinion that a co-conspiritor in a plot to kill 270 people deserves life in prison. In our media-saturated age, the number of deaths from tragedies seem to lose their gravity. 270 is a LOT of people. If that man helped murder 270 human beings (even in a low-level way), then yes. He should be in jail forever. Let his family visit him in the old Graybar Hotel.

If he had absolutely nothing to do with it, then Scotland owes him and his family a debt too large for words.
 
Libya is playing this for all the propaganda it's worth. According to the Libyan government, this isn't about compassion for a dying man at all:
But on Thursday, after al Megrahi's return, the Libyan official news agency JANA issued a statement from the government saying that al Megrahi had been "a political hostage," as evidenced by his release.
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Yep, this is about those bastard Scots finally doing the right thing and releasing a political hostage.

Oh, and Kadhafi's son says it was also done as a prerequisite for a trade deal with Britain.

Like I said, played for fools.
 
WildCat said:
He was convicted in a Scottish court (what has changed since then?) and sentenced "at least 27 years". Pardon me if I didn't see an asterix in that sentence.
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You think the sentencing judge was unaware that the Scottish legal system allows for a convict to be pardoned and that this means he might be released early?
 
WildCat said:
Some may have been cheering the deed, just like Samir Kuntar is now a Lebanese, Syrian, and Iranian national hero for bashing in the head of a 4 year old Israeli child.
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Kuntar denies killing Einat Haran.
The evidence to suggest he did is strong, however -- much more convincing than in the case of Megrahi. That doesn't mean that everyone believes it.
 
WildCat said:
Libya is playing this for all the propaganda it's worth. According to the Libyan government, this isn't about compassion for a dying man at all:

Yep, this is about those bastard Scots finally doing the right thing and releasing a political hostage.

Oh, and Kadhafi's son says it was also done as a prerequisite for a trade deal with Britain.

Like I said, played for fools.
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:eek: that sounds almost too crazy to be true. The link isn't working for me though... where is this info from? Libya itself?
 
FireGarden said:
Is "pardoned" the correct word here?
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Hmm. It appears not, at least if we're going to be exact. It seems that in the UK pardons can only be issued by the Queen (on the advice of the Home Secretary or the First Minister of Scotland.

The distinction between pardons and releases on compassionate grounds isn't really important, though. My point was that the sentence was issued in the knowledge that it might not be carried out fully. The "asterix" sought by WildCat lies in that the context of the sentence is the Scottish penal system and all that implies on the treatment of prisoners.
 
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