Lockerbie bombing revisted

In August of this year an international flap arose over the release on alleged compassionate grounds of convicted Lockerbie aircraft bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi to his home country of Libya. Supposedly he was due to die within three months from cancer.

As of this past Wednesday he was still alive.

At the time, I did not buy into the compassion part of the story. There was some scuttlebutt that it was done because of some commercial deal in the offing between the U.K. and Libya, but I thought the truth lay more in that fact that al-Megrahi was appealing his conviction, that the case against him at trial was shaky, that he might well have succeeded on the appeal and it would embarrass the government.

When he arrived in Tripoli he was greeted as a conquering hero.

During his trial the defense portrayed him as a lowly airline employee.

New information has now been revealed that was not available at his trial.

Al-Megrahi was sitting on a Swiss bank account containing nearly three million U.S. dollars in today’s currency. Furthermore, he was involved in the purchase of development of chemical weapons for Libya and he attempted to purchase 1,000 letter bombs from Greek arms dealers, while he employed as a Libyan intelligence officer.

So far, the Scottish government has declined to make his medical records available for public scrutiny.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that he was the Lockerbie bomber, but it does suggest he was anything but a lowly airline worker, and in terms of international terror activities, certainly not an innocent man.

I have just two words to say about this -- Bollocks

Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill

There is a great flap going on over the so-called “compassionate” release of the Lockerbie airline bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. Scotland’s Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, gave a gushy nonsensical speech about Scottish values of compassion and mercy being the motivating factor in the government’s decision to release al Megrahi to go home and die from cancer in Libya.

One thing I know about politicians is that the ability to lie with a completely straight face is a skill one must have to succeed in politics.

The real reason is that al-Megrahi probably never should have been convicted in the first place. The prosecutor’s case against him was very weak. Even the relatives of the victims of the bombings who attended the trial doubted the truth of the verdict. Since that time his defense team has been assembling further proof that some of the incriminating evidence may have been fabricated or planted.

Scotland didn’t release him for any compassionate reason, but because the pending appeal would likely cause politically embarrassing issues for the government.

In politics, one must always ask the question, who benefits from this decision? Clearly, it is the Scottish government that can now sweep this whole mess under the carpet.