Merged [Ed] Convicted Lockerbie bomber released

I hope the US commentators will remember that America was not the only country to have people killed that night. Scottish people also died, and yet the opinions in Scotland are not so condemnatory as in America.

Note the words of the Lockerbie parish priest, who was in his house only yards away from where the engines fell that night.

"I'm very, very pleased that Mr Megrahi has gone home,'' he said. "From the very beginning, following the investigation very closely, the whole thrust of it was towards Iran. Then suddenly that shifted and it switched to Libya. We were being told at the time by the American and British authorities that if we get the Libyans, it will lead to all the others.

"I was suspicious about this sudden switch anyway. As we can see, time has shown that it has certainly not led to the conviction of other people. I feel an innocent man was convicted."
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You know there was an outstanding appeal against the conviction. The main reason for the appeal going ahead is that the most solid plank of evidence presented against Megrahi was from a Maltese shopkeeper. This man, described as "an apple short of a picnic" stood up and swore in court that the man who had bought the clothes found in the suitcase bomb was not over six feet tall and in his fifties, as he previously said, but was Megrahi - 5' 8" tall and 36 years old. And yes, the day he bought them was 7th December. The only day Megrahi could possibly have been in that shop.

Why did he suddenly become so sure? Well, when the US government has told you it will give you $2 million dollars if you say something that will get Megrahi convicted, I imagine that does stimulate the memory somewhat.

And that's not even the worst of it.

Is the USA just miffed that its investment has been thrown away?

Rolfe.
 
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You know there was an outstanding appeal against the conviction.
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Yes I am well aware that there are issues with the safety of the conviction, performed under Scottish law in a Scottish court, and yet again I will repeat that this has nothing to do with the stated reasons for release of the prisoner.
As things stood at his release and still today, he is a convicted terrorist responsible for mass murder.
 
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Policenaut said:
This seems like an elaborate puppet show. The more I hear about all the back dealings the worse it sounds for all parties involved. Of course in the end all the governments seem to benefit from the outcome. That doesn't mean the people have to like it. Maybe the public in the UK like it but from what I have seen in the US people think this is rotten. I don't think I've seen anyone try to spin this story in a positive way and like I said before Wolf Blitzer questioned MacAskill harder than I've ever seen him question anyone before.
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You've put your finger on it, in many ways.

Firstly, most of the quality Scottish press are making the same point as Rolfe; the Westminster government signed a treaty designed solely to return Megrahi to Libya, almost certainly in return for trade deals. And we've had it from the horse's mouth.

Secondly, the Labour politicians kept well stuhm about their views until after the event, notwithstanding the fact that the release was very well known about for at least a week before it was announced. Suddenly they're jumping on a bandwagon which completely overlooks not just their silence, but their London masters' agreement to the treaty in the first place.

Thirdly, Magrahi's convinction looks more than a little shoogily. Very authoritive voices in the Scottish legal profession, such as Professor Black, have cast considerable doubt on what was, effectively, a case built on circumstantial evidence. Again, Rolfe has nicely sumamrised many of the questions being asked.

Lastly, the SNP are more than happy to tell Westminster to get it up them, and to show their own independence. It is, after all, their raison d'etre. McAskill could have kepy Magrahi in jail, let him rot. Instead, he did what he's allowed to do in Scots Law and showed him compassion; a dying man with no more than a few weeks to live - a few weeks likely to have been spent at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, not Barlinnie - was sent home.

As an aside, a friend of mine who used to be involved in the prisons inspectorate and had met Magrahi several times has an articles in one of the Scottish sundays in which he describes Magrahi as a cunning, intelligent intelligence agent who was indeed capable of having brought the plane down. But does he criticise the release? No.
 
GlennB said:
Is this the guy who is under the impression - after spending "a large amount of time on the case" - that Megrahi was convicted by a jury?
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I note in passing that none of those shouting the FBI chap's case actually picked up this basic error. Hopefully the fellow from the chiefs of staff will have got it right. Ah, no, just saw the fuller report.....
 
Rolfe said:
You know there was an outstanding appeal against the conviction. The main reason for the appeal going ahead is that the most solid plank of evidence presented against Megrahi was from a Maltese shopkeeper. This man, described as "an apple short of a picnic" stood up and swore in court that the man who had bought the clothes found in the suitcase bomb was not over six feet tall and in his fifties, as he previously said, but was Megrahi - 5' 8" tall and 36 years old. And yes, the day he bought them was 7th December. The only day Megrahi could possibly have been in that shop.
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One of the fundamental rules of Scots criminal law is that the essential elements of the charge require to be corroborated before anyone can be convicted on that charge.

Corroboration does not require two witnesses. What it does require is two or more separate sources of evidence. It is the different source that matters, not the type of evidence. These sources could be oral from witnesses who saw or heard something, admissions by the accused or “real” evidence such as fingerprints or blood.

Now, if the corroboration vanishes because, say, it turns out that the only witness is a couple of apples short of a picnic then it's pretty much a free pass to an appeal. And perhaps this is where the problem comes in.

It may very well be that the Justice Minister (ours, not the English one) knows exactly how shoogily a peg the conviction is and took the less bad option (compassion/accusations of bad decisions as against evidence that Scots Law screwed up one of its most important trials, possibly with American buggeration thrown in to boot).

This is, I suspect, exactly the kind of think that motivates Jim Swires based on his writings in the press.
 
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scissorhands said:
Then the law is clearly wrong in this case.
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Load of bollocks. Show me one country which excludes some type of criminals from "compassionate release" or "pardon" regulations.

scissorhands said:
This case isnt about some domestic Scottish mass murderer.
The Scottish people can vote for a government to enact as many compassionate laws as they wish regarding that.
This case concerns a convicted international terrorist and mass murderer who killed a large number of non Scots, and the bomb just happened to go off over Scotland.
Had it exploded an hour later we wouldnt be having this discussion.

You find it surprising that the family members in the US would react like this?
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It was agreed between all parties involved - UK, US, Libya - that Megrahi would be tried according to Scottish law and serve his sentence in Scotland. If you're going to whine about all the poor victims - they were from a dozen or so countries, should they all be consulted in such a case? The US was involved because the plane was American.

But that's all water under the bridge. From the moment Megrahi entered Camp Zeist (*), he was on Scottish soil, under Scottish jurisdiction, and it's up to the Scottish government and judiciary to judge over things like compassionate release.

I get the definite impression that your posts are only thinly disguised rants against Scottish devolution and possible Scottish independence. If you have a gripe with that, start another thread about it and leave the bickering here. However, I've seen no single indication from your posts, as far as I've read them, that an English government (**) had acted different, on the contrary, they were all too happy to transfer him earlier, in 2007, something which was expressly forbidden by the rules set up in 2001.

(*) Camp Zeist was, for the duration of the trial, under the jurisdiction of the court.

(**) in the British situation with devolution for some regions, the British government doubles as the government of England.
 
ddt said:
(**) in the British situation with devolution for some regions, the British government doubles as the government of England.
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You could get a thread out of that on it's own! ;)

Back on topic, however, I was looking at the extent to which the run-up to the release had been reported in the US media and came across this, which I think you might find interesting:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/08/13/lockerbie.bombing.release/index.html

Incidentally, that took me to this blog which in turn reminded me that the UN observer was less than taken with the trial:

http://underachievement.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-is-there-such-uncritical-acceptance.html
 
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ddt said:
Load of bollocks. Show me one country which excludes some type of criminals from "compassionate release" or "pardon" regulations.


It was agreed between all parties involved - UK, US, Libya - that Megrahi would be tried according to Scottish law and serve his sentence in Scotland. If you're going to whine about all the poor victims - they were from a dozen or so countries, should they all be consulted in such a case? The US was involved because the plane was American.

But that's all water under the bridge. From the moment Megrahi entered Camp Zeist (*), he was on Scottish soil, under Scottish jurisdiction, and it's up to the Scottish government and judiciary to judge over things like compassionate release.

I get the definite impression that your posts are only thinly disguised rants against Scottish devolution and possible Scottish independence. If you have a gripe with that, start another thread about it and leave the bickering here. However, I've seen no single indication from your posts, as far as I've read them, that an English government (**) had acted different, on the contrary, they were all too happy to transfer him earlier, in 2007, something which was expressly forbidden by the rules set up in 2001.

(*) Camp Zeist was, for the duration of the trial, under the jurisdiction of the court.

(**) in the British situation with devolution for some regions, the British government doubles as the government of England.
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I might be bothered answering you, but Architect will only report my post in order to censor it, so I think I have better things to do.
 
Architect said:
Now, if the corroboration vanishes because, say, it turns out that the only witness is a couple of apples short of a picnic then it's pretty much a free pass to an appeal. And perhaps this is where the problem comes in.
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Never mind how many apples short of a picnic he was, he was bribed. The US government paid him $2 million to give evidence that would convict Megrahi. Is it any wonder that he suddenly changed his mind about what the purchaser of the clothes looked like, and became a lot more certain about which day it was?

The other reason his evidence is suspect is that he failed to pick Megrahi out of a photo-identity parade four times. He managed it on the fifth time, and this was held to be highly incriminating for Megrahi. However, he had seen Megrahi's picture in a magazine article about the case just before the fifth shot.

Architect said:
It may very well be that the Justice Minister (ours, not the English one) knows exactly how shoogily a peg the conviction is and took the less bad option (compassion/accusations of bad decisions as against evidence that Scots Law screwed up one of it's most important trials, possibly with American buggeration thrown in to boot).
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I'm fairly sure MacAskill has his doubts about that conviction, and has had for some time. However, he's a lawyer. He know very well that he can't turn round and say, compassionate release granted because I don't think your conviction was sound. He really would have to resign if he said that. But the shoogly state of the evidence can't help informing the decision.

Camp Zeist was a bit of a farce. There was huge pressure to get a conviction, and there was no jury. The judges at the time were dependent of the Lord Advocate for their positions, and two acquittals would have been enormously embarrassing for the Lord Advocate. Even at the time, there was huge surprise at the verdict from people who had been watching the case and knew the law. And yet, everybody was so ridiculously proud to be showing off the great Scottish justice system.

Meh.

What about this top-secret document that has been ruled should be produced because it is favourable to the defence, but the Crown keep refusing on grounds of not pissing-off a "foreign power"? Little things like that don't add to confidence either.

And look at what happened to Shirley McKie. She was the victim of a minor mistake in a fingerprint identification, but rather than admit the mistake and move on, the SCRB stuck to its guns to an absolutely preposterous degree. Allegedly because admitting a mistake in fingerprint identification might give the defence at Camp Zeist some ammunition to clam that they were incompetent. The American fingerprint experts that Shirley enlisted to assist her defence reported political pressure from their own government to drop it.

Architect said:
This is, I suspect, exactly the kind of think that motivates Jim Swires based on his writings in the press.
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I's not too sure about Jim Swire. Have you seen his web site? Just because he's a doctor, and so presumably fairly bright, and his daughter was killed, doesn't mean he can't be a CTer.

The trouble is, noting that the evidence against Megrahi is thin to the point of transparency is one thing, but speculating on who actually did it is something else. There are a lot of unconnected factoids floating around, from a breakin at Heathrow airport to the deposit of a large sum of money in the account of a Palestinian organisation, from the government of Iran. But if the people actually investigating it can't put that together to make a case, I don't suppose anyone else can either.

This could be as simple as the Jill Dando murder. Whoever did that was a pro. There was NO evidence. None at all. In the end the police latched on to a colourful inadequate who was hanging around acting strangely, and cobbled a circumstantial case together mostly based on overinterpreting things that really had nothing to do with the murder. Barry George spent 7 years in jail for that, and was only acquitted on his second appeal. And they simply have no idea who killed Jill Dando, because the evidence wasn't there.

We like to think an inquiry or an appeal would sort things out, but while it might exonerate Megrahi, it would probably leave things up in the air otherwise. And lacking the time to complete that process, just saying, OK you're dying, get out of our hair, might have been the only sensible move.

Rolfe.
 
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Policenaut said:
[....] and like I said before Wolf Blitzer questioned MacAskill harder than I've ever seen him question anyone before.
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Do you judge whether someone did the right thing by how hard an interviewer leans on him? Does the fact that Wolf Blitzer was angry mean anything at all? We're seeing a lot of angry Americans, and most of them seem to be pretty hazy about what's actually going on.

How MacAskill handled the questions might be more informative.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Do you judge whether someone did the right thing by how hard an interviewer leans on him? Does the fact that Wolf Blitzer was angry mean anything at all? We're seeing a lot of angry Americans, and most of them seem to be pretty hazy about what's actually going on.

How MacAskill handled the questions might be more informative.

Rolfe.
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Indeed, I wonder if it's available somewhere. Links, anyone?
 
I was just saying that Wolf is usually a casual interviewer but he was going after him harder than I've ever seen him go after someone before. I didn't interpret it any other way than he was dissatisfied with MacAskills decision and his answers. It was surprising to me. Anyway MacAskill stuck to his guns and basically said the same things he said in his statement to the press. The interview basically went nowhere and wasn't all that interesting (except for the fact that Wolf was playing hardball). I didn't learn anything new listening to it. And remember this interview took place quite soon after MacAskills public statement. I don't think anyone commenting in the US let alone Wolf knew anything about the oil deal back story which would have made for more interesting questions.

Transcript: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/08/20/transcript.lockerbie.bomber/index.html
 
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ddt said:
I get the definite impression that your posts are only thinly disguised rants against Scottish devolution and possible Scottish independence. If you have a gripe with that, start another thread about it and leave the bickering here.
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I'm not reading scissorhands' posts, but you're quite right. Except that there isn't any disguise at all.

This is part of the Labour party strategy surrounding the issue. The first application for compassionate release was before Christmas, but it was rejected because Megrahi wasn't sick enough. It was made clear even then that if his health deteriorated, a subsequent appeal had a good chance of success. Did we hear anything from the London government then about this being a really bad idea? No. (One imagines them breathing, "oh, please...." under their breath.)

This summer, speculation was more intense as Megrahi was said to be much worse. When Ronnie Biggs was granted compassionate release at the beginning of August, that seemed to be a interesting precedent. It's been likely for a month or so that Megrahi would also be released. Did London Labour say a word against it? Did any of the Labour MSPs say a word against it? Nope.

Then, somebody leaked that the decision was going to be "yes", a week in advance. That somebody is agreed not to have been the SNP, although that didn't stop Labour ministers bleating about it as if it were. But even then, they were only criticising the media management, not the decision.

Why didn't they say anything? Why didn't Ian Grey tell us then that he would let Megrahi rot iin jail if it was up to him? Why didn't Jack McConnell tell us then that a compassionate release would drag Scotland's name through the mud?

Two reasons. First because they really, really would have been in trouble if they'd influenced MacAskill to a "no" decision, because their London masters wanted Megrahi back in Libya to secure the BP oil deals. And second, when someone is taking a difficult decision, one which can be criticised either way, and your main aim in life is to make that person look bad, why would you say in advance which side you favour? No, much better to say nothing, then once the decision is made, you can lay into it with as much vitriol as you can muster - whichever way it went! Perfect political opportunity.

If Megrahi's application had been refused, it's likely this would have barely registered in the USA. Nobody there would have been paying a blind bit of attention to what Brit-Labour politicos were saying about the Scottish government. And it's a racing certainty that what they would be saying was that Kenny MacAskill should resign because he has just jeopardised years of work securing valuable commercial deals in Libya.

It's much easier to follow all this if you realise that the Labour party, in government in Westminster, but having lost Holyrood to their bitter enemies in 2007, hates the SNP with a vicious intensity which governs just about anything they say or do.

Kenny MacAskill did the right thing, for the right reasons, and it just happened to be the same thing as London Labour wanted, for all the wrong reasons. And since it was Kenny's decision to make, it suited them very well to let him make it, then let him take all the flak, and then turn on him themselves.

And talking of threads about Scottish independence, we have one which was active until a couple of days ago. Scossorhands didn't post. If he wants to take it there, I'll undertake to start reading his posts again.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151380

Rolfe.
 
Architect said:
ddt said:
in the British situation with devolution for some regions, the British government doubles as the government of England.
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You could get a thread out of that on it's own! ;)
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No, that has already been resolved in a parliamentary debate ("West Lothian Question"). :)

ETA: I mean "resolved" as in that being the factual situation. Of course you can debate the desirability. :)

Architect said:
Back on topic, however, I was looking at the extent to which the run-up to the release had been reported in the US media and came across this, which I think you might find interesting:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/08/13/lockerbie.bombing.release/index.html
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It's interesting in that it mentions the doubts cast over his conviction and his appeal. However, this seems wrong:
Megrahi has lodged an appeal of his conviction, which a five-judge review commission is still considering.
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His appeal was already being heard by the Appeal Court (though at glacial speed).

The page with readers comments reads as a petition for the death penalty. This one had me laugh:
I was the State Department Officer in Charge of Crisis Management during the Lockerbie incident. this means I was montioring in real time what was happening. It took months to determine who was behind the explosion of PanAm 104.
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Spot the errors.

Architect said:
Incidentally, that took me to this blog which in turn reminded me that the UN observer was less than taken with the trial:

http://underachievement.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-is-there-such-uncritical-acceptance.html
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I think Köchler used stronger words than your over-civil British understatement.

Another interesting blog is Robert Black QC's (*), the law professor who devised the Camp Zeist procedures. He has an interesting entry today:
A CIA terror expert who worked on the Lockerbie investigation has claimed Megrahi would have been freed on appeal.

In an exclusive interview, retired case officer Robert Baer has revealed details of the secret dossier of evidence Megrahi hoped would clear his name.
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and further down:
"There is hard evidence of other nations - Iran particularly - being responsible for this atrocity.

"The CIA knew this almost from the moment the plane exploded. This decision to free Megrahi was about protecting the integrity of your justiciary because the appeal papers prove Iran was involved.
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Or should this be discussed over in the CT thread?

(*) where does the apostrophe-s go with these titles behind the name?
 
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ddt said:
(*) where does the apostrophe-s go with these titles behind the name?
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Robert Black's QC would be the advocate arguing Robert Black's case.

Robert Black QC's would be the possessive form you're looking for!

Rolfe.
 
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