Scotland releases Lockerbie bomber on "compassionate grounds"- Page 3

[NYadgal]

Posted: 8/25/09 at 4:59pm

Sharing another point of view. Written by someone I know for "The New Yorker".
I wanted to share for the sake of providing additional food for thought.
Or for discussion.
(ps - I don't agree, but just wanted to 'share')


Andrew Solomon: Megrahi's Compassionate Release

The compassionate release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, has been roundly condemned by both the U.S. government and the American media. President Obama called the release "a mistake," and Hillary Clinton, who had already said it would be "absolutely wrong to free him, was deeply disappointed." There are two primary questions here. The first is whether Megrahi, and, indeed, Qaddafi's regime in general, was responsible for the bombings, a question I raised in my 2006 examination of the Libyan political system for this magazine. The second is whether dying people, no matter how gross their sins, deserve compassion, and should be allowed to die at home. But the real issue lies in the conjunction of these two problems. Does the possibility that someone has been wrongly imprisoned increase the imperative to offer compassionate release?

The fact that Megrahi was convicted on thin evidence has been noted by many who were close to the original trial and the hastily assembled first appeal. Robert Black, the Scottish lawyer who was the architect of the original trial, described it as "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for a hundred years." Professor Hans Kachler, appointed by Kofi Annan to observe the trial for the U.N., called the second court's decision a 'spectacular miscarriage of justice.' One of the primary witnesses, Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who identified Megrahi as having bought the clothes that investigators believed were wrapped around the bomb has been largely discredited, and the assertion that the Swiss Mebo MST-13 timer used to detonate the bomb had been sold only to the Libyans has proved false. The original C.I.A. inquiries focussed on Tehran, where there had been calls for vengeance after a U.S. Navy cruiser accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger plane. Robert Baer, who worked on the case for the C.I.A., has said that Iran was responsible, and "60 Minutes" put forward, in 2000, the possibility that Tehran hired a Syria-based Palestinian organization to stage the attack. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review, which examined all this material, determined there was evidence for a second appeal, and that appeal was underway when doctors said Megrahi had only three months to live. Conspiracy theories abound: that the Libyans were fingered in the first place to avoid a confrontation with Iran at a delicate time; that this political jig would have become broadly known if Megrahi hadn't dropped the appeal in exchange for compassionate release; that Scotland released Megrahi in order to gain access to Libyan oil; and many others too baroque to rehearse here. Any of these may be true, but they would take many years to unfurl. While the conviction of Megrahi may prove to be right, no one could describe it as anywhere near watertight, and reasonable doubt does remain a standard for legal innocence.

Imprisonment serves three functions. It removes people who might commit further crimes from a context in which they can commit them. There was no need to keep Megrahi behind bars with this objective. It sends a signal to others tempted to commit similar crimes that there is a cost. Megrahi's release on his deathbed will not encourage terrorists; indeed, shows of humane treatment of this kind dampen Islamic anti-Americanism. Finally, it allows those who were injured in a crime to feel the satisfactions of revenge - the retribution principle. This is the ugliest of the three reasons, and indulging it is a problematical standard for compassion. It's not that it's wrong, per se, but that it has limits, and the dying days of a man who is possibly innocent of this particular crime seem too high a price to pay for it.

Megrahi has received a hero's welcome in Libya because Libyans feel that they have been unfairly scapegoated by the West, and that Megrahi has been a martyr to international prejudice against them. They are angry that the U.S. appears not to have fulfilled what they understood as promises of complete diplomatic recognition following Qaddafi's payment of damages to the Lockerbie families and his renunciation of a nuclear program. They believed in Megrahi's innocence all along and now feel vindicated, and are thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of American outrage, which is to them as jingoistic as we perceive their jubilation to be. The posture of the President and the Secretary of State is designed to cater to the tough-on-terrorists approach required of all American politicians, and to play to those Lockerbie families who reconciled themselves to tragedy only by believing that the guilty were caught and punished. In the U.S., the voices of the vengeful have been loudest. But, in fact, many Lockerbie families believe that Megrahi was wrongly convicted. Martin Cadman, who lost a son in the disaster, said the trial was "a farce" and that the release of Megrahi was "just righting a wrong." Jim Swire, who lost a daughter, said, "As time goes by it will become clear that he had nothing to do with it." The Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, now under attack, was courageous in allowing the confusing evidence to tilt in favor of letting a sick man go home.






New Yorker - full link here

Updated On: 8/27/09 at 04:59 PM

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/26/09 at 12:54am

I'm glad I no longer read the New Yorker, but I'm sorry I read this bilge.

Sickening. Absolutely sickening.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 3:11am

It seems my post didn't show up, so here it is again:

I understand where everybody is coming from, but I for the life of me cannot understand why so many see no opportunity to even consider the idea of compassionate justice, even in so extreme and distressing a case.

I understand the basic issues with it and the gut emotions involved, and I certainly feel them, too.

Had I been in the Justice Minister's place, I feel I would have denied his release.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I suppose my main issue has to do with the way our national discourse has generated into nothingness. Examples exist all over the place, from the healthcare debate to torture to any other political issue currently in the zeitgeist, and this case is a stark example to me primarily because the sides on the issue are so lopsided. So many appalled, very few considering the other side, a side the vast majority see as revolting...thus the demonization of the Justice Minister.

Also, I want to add that I understand the sensitivity of this issue and I was not looking to upset anyone with my previous posts. If I have appeared antagonistic, it certainly wasn't meant to be, I am just honestly extremely intrigued by the complexities of the reactions to this decision and my inquisitiveness might have come across antagonistic. If it has, I apologize.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/28/09 at 7:38am

Stick to Priest:

Why can't you understand, or even entertain the notion that perhaps people DID consider the other side's arguments, felt disgusted by them, and rejected them wholeheartedly, either through reasoned analysis, gut reaction, or both? And if people felt nauseated, revolted, appalled, as I did, why are you trying to stifle either their feeling this way, or their expressing what they feel? If one feels strongly about something, then strong language is what should be used to express it.

You made your point in an earlier post. Now you've repeated it here. I feel strongly that people who do terrible things deserve to be criticized in the harshest terms.


Your put-down of strong reactions and strong expressions thereof appeared to me condescending. Please don't lecture others on how they should think, feel, or express themselves.
Updated On: 8/28/09 at 07:38 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 9:23am

Priest--it seems that the Justice Minister and Gordon Brown DID do it all for Libyan oil.

Shame, Scotland, shame.
Times Online: Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil'

[sabrelady]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 9:08pm

I suppose one could be compassionate and "oilier than thou".
Seriously, tho- when was the last time you heard of a country doing something "political" just "because it it's the right thing to do"?

And people wonder why I am a bitter and cynical woman!

[Scripps2]

Posted: 5/21/12 at 5:20pm

Dead and buried.