Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi

In December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 crashed on the town of Lockerbie in Scotland after an on board bomb exploded. 270 people died. 259 of those were on the flight and another 11 were on the ground in Lockerbie.

In 2001, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who had been extradited in 1999, was convicted of 270 counts of murder for his role in the bombing. The trial was unusual - a panel of Scottish judges sat in a special court in Camp Zeist, Holland. The recommendation was that Megrahi serve at least 27 years before being considered for parole.

This week, Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds following a decision by Kenny MacAskill, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice in Scotland. Megrahi has terminal prostate cancer and it has been estimated that he has less than three months to live.

On his arrival in Tripoli, Megrahi was greeted as a hero by a crowd waving Libyan and Scottish flags. These scenes have been described as disgusting and deeply disturbing by politicians in this country. However, since then, in the face of strong criticism from an number of international political figures, including the British Prime Minister and the American President, other events set to mark Megrahi's return have been cancelled.



This decision has been the main headline here all week both before and after it was made. I have no idea how widely it has been reported in other countries. (It would be interesting to find that out.) The build-up to the decision had no less than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama urging Kenny MacAskill not to release Megrahi. (Of the dead, 180 were American.)

As part of the debate, varous subjects, points and counterpoints have been discussed and made. It has, for example, been suggested that the Scottish criminal justice system is based on the idea of deterrent rather than punishment and that this could, perhaps, underpin the differences in attitude of Obama and MacAskill. It has also been raised that releasing a terminally ill prisoner is part of established procedure in the UK and that it would be wrong to discriminate against Megrahi due to outside pressure. The counter to that, which has come mainly from American sources, is that Megrahi showed no compassion for his victims and that they did not have the opportunity to die at home with their families.

As ever with this case, added in to the mix are those people who claim that Megrahi was only ever a scape goat for this crime, one which desperately needed someone to be found guilty for political reasons, and they claim that his trial was a miscarriage of justice, with the real perpetrators never having been brought to justice.


Anyway, all we've had here are the opinions and rhetoric of politicians on this. Various high-level figures with vested interests have been point scoring off of one another and saying what they are expected to say. As a result, I thought that it was time that a clear-thinking, well informed, intelligent panel of experts was consulted. So, I turn to you, my learned colleagues of the Doomworld bar. Any comments?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdelbaset_Ali_Mohmed_Al_Megrahi

Enjay said:

As ever with this case, added in to the mix are those people who claim that Megrahi was only ever a scape goat for this crime, one which desperately needed someone to be found guilty for political reasons, and they claim that his trial was a miscarriage of justice, with the real perpetrators never having been brought to justice.

That is correct. As with most of these types of attacks, they are state sponsored false flag terrorism.

Enjay said:

The counter to that, which has come mainly from American sources, is that Megrahi showed no compassion for his victims and that they did not have the opportunity to die at home with their families.

Classical Lex Talionis. By the same logic, the appropriate punishment for Armin Meiwes would be to eat him.

The whole thing reeks of a sham. He is most likely innocent.

This is the first time I've heard of this, but not five minutes later and I notice this article on MSN saying that he was possibly released as part of a deal with Libya for gas and oil. Even without that rumor, it's an interesting case. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

ALL LIES!

One of my earliest memories is of seeing Lockerbie on the news. It's pretty wierd when i hear about it, much more so now that this has happened.

OT but interesting: The British paper The Daily Mirror had a story related to Lockerbie on it's front cover on September 11th 2001.

Not really reported widely in Poland, but I kept hearing about it every day on CNN, BBC News and Euronews.

Right now the media have even more info to fuel their interest with Gaddafi linking the release to a supposed business deal that Blair had already denied in an exclusive interview for CNN.

As for my opinion, let the guy die in peace, no reason to keep him in jail when he's terminally ill. The one guy who acted as a spokesman for the victims families on every news channel really needs to get over it. Libya's red carpet treatment prepared for his return should be criticized as heavily as possible, but I doubt anything will stop them from portraying him as a martyr. Apparently he'll live out his days in a luxury villa sponsored by the government.

That guy's name sounds suspiciously close to MacAsshole.

Also, from what I've read on this before, he really does sound like a scapegoat. The Libyans are assholes for treating him like a hero, though.

See? If Obama were 20 years older, and was elected back then, we could've just sat down with these terrorists before the incident, and it would've been all avoided....

If "Dubya" wasn't still trying to master Sesame Street at the time, and was President then, he'd go over there, kick their asses, and the plane might've never went down.

Reagan was President, and didn't know that planes were invented, or his own name.

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Seriously, that display of celebration was disgusting, and Obama wants to talk to these people?!

Georgef551 said:

Seriously, that display of celebration was disgusting, and Obama wants to talk to these people?!

The world has been 'talking' to Libya for at least 10 years with good effects, I don't see why a single event that makes you butthurt should change anything.

As for Dubya:

"Since 2003 the country has made efforts to normalize its ties with the European Union and the United States and has even coined the catchphrase, 'The Libya Model', an example intended to show the world what can be achieved through negotiation rather than force when there is goodwill on both sides. By 2004 Bush had lifted the economic sanctions on Libya and official relations resumed between Libya and the United States."

"The final step in the process of rebuilding the relations between the two countries came in January 2009 when Ali Suleiman Aujali presented his letters of credentials to President George W. Bush as Ambassador Extraordinaire and Plenipotentiary of Libya to the United States of America, and Gene A. Cretz presents his letter of credentials before the General People’s Congress; currently both are serving as Ambassadors to their respective countries."