“Hi Mo, What’s your view of the Libya issue?”
The full answer:—
I support the early release of a prisoner who is dying. I don’t believe this is a new policy anyway, but it’s worth saying. In a limited set of circumstances, there may be justification for forcing them to die in prison; this has nothing to do with the crime they committed per se, but the Prison Service’s assessment of the risk they pose to themselves and society in general by being released. Again, I may be wrong about this, but when was the last time you heard of a prisoner (not unexpectedly) dying in prison? Also, to those saying “life means life”; he wasn’t given a life sentence in the first place (although if the conviction was sound, 27 years was clearly a ridiculous sentence).
This is solely my own opinion (although I know I’m not alone in holding it), but having read the 2002 Court of Appeal opinion, it strikes me that the Crown case had holes so large a bus could be driven through them, and that’s putting it mildly. Some more background can be found from BBC News, which has a decent summary of it. See also Eyes passim ad nauseum.
Notably, the primary prosecution witness, a clothes-seller from Malta, identified Megrahi after seeing in a magazine that he was a suspect in the case, and was subsequently paid large amounts of money by the United States Government and has now “retired” to Australia.
Also, the prosecution case was unable to—and this was a hole in the case conceded by both the Crown and the Court of Appeal—explain with any degree of certainty how the suitcase containing the bomb made it onto the flight. One would have thought this would be fairly crucial in securing a conviction.
Related to this, it has been reported that Heathrow airport suffered a break-in the night prior to the Lockerbie bombing; this information was concealed by the Crown at the time of the original trial. Also, the Police were rebuked for poor evidence-handling.
Key evidence (specifically the timer fragment found wrapped up in clothing bought from the clothes-seller in Malta) wasn’t discovered until weeks after PA103 was bombed, and some miles from the crash scene.
Evidence was submitted by the crown which, by way of Public Interest Immunity certificates†, neither Megrahi, nor his defence team, have been permitted to see to this day. This undermines the very notion of a fair trial (statement from Dr Hans Koechler, UN-appointed observer for the trial) from the outset.
The political mudslinging between the US, Labour, and the SNP is pitiful. It’s clear that, (a), the US government was complicit in and exerted influence over the original prosecution; (b) both Westminster and Holyrood were complicit in Megrahi’s release. With each news report, additional snippets of information are released which quite clearly demonstrate collusion. Even so, I refer you all to point #1.
Libya offered up to $2.7bn by way of compensation, partially in return for UN sanctions being lifted. In sheer economic terms, it was worth spending the money and accepting responsibility just so that the sanctions would be lifted.
On the basis of all of this, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that Megrahi was innocent. I similarly don’t believe it was proven that he’s guilty, either. The case was—and remains to be—so disturbingly shoddy that I can’t possibly consider it a safe conviction, even if the Court of Appeal thus far disagrees with me. Prove he’s guilty then lock him up for 27 years, not the other way around.
While apparently not particularly true amongst the US-based families of the victims‡, a not insignificant contingent of the Scottish victims’ families also believe that the conviction was unsound and want the truth to be made public (see point #7 in particular). As Megrahi’s appeal was dropped in preparation for his release, the clear course of action in its stead is to launch a full, independent, public enquiry.
My preference for this, and I realise it will never happen in the lifetime of any of the politicians, police, or Lords involved, would be that it would be conducted by a UN-appointed person (Dr Hans Koechler, the aforementioned UN-appointed observer of the proceedings wouldn’t be a terrible choice, as he is familiar with, but remained independent from, the case throughout), with binding resolutions imposed upon relevant states in order to force evidence to be turned over.
Hopefully, that answers that question.
† A PII certificate is newspeak for “this information would be highly damaging to the Royal Household or Her Majesty’s Government, either directly, or indirectly by way being damaging to its allies”. Make up your own minds on that one, too.
‡ It should be noted that the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have my utmost sympathies; aside from the case as it stands being an injustice towards Megrahi (and, if he is innocent, whomever is actually responsible), but the families of the victims deserve justice, and that has still yet to have been served even 21 years after the event.
