I had another blog ready for today but I couldn’t let the Pan-Am 103 ‘terrorist’ Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s release just drift, although it’s unlikely that the press, on both sides of the Atlantic, will let it go quickly.
Right from the start, you need to acknowledge, not accept, just acknowledge that this conviction was highly unsafe and to do that you need to understand how this Libyan’s trial found him guilty.
Of course, we have two sets of views on this. The Americans who suffered the vast majority of the appalling loss of life think he’s guilty and should not have been released, but the 11 Scottish families, almost to a person, and many respected legal commentators, think the conviction was a travesty and undermined Scottish justice.
A quick review of the evidence which convicted Megrahi needs to be considered. He was a Libyan intelligence agent and was obviously on MI5 and the CIA’s radar otherwise he wouldn’t have been a suspect. The Libyan’s only gave him up after it was agreed that a ‘Scottish court’ be set up in Holland where he could get a fairer trial. There was no jury, just a bench of judges who considered the evidence and declared him guilty.
The evidence against him was based on the reconstruction of the cassette-radio which held the bomb and which was then reckoned to have been placed within a suitcase which in turn held clothes which were traced to a shop in Malta. The Maltese shopkeeper was then able to identify Megrahi as the purchaser of these clothes and hence the conviction. But, and this is a very big but, the Scottish police had groomed the shopkeeper (before the trial) and the Americans gave him a ‘cash bonus’ after the trial. The shopkeeper had also seen pictures of the suspect prior to identifying him.
The evidence, to say the least, was highly circumstantial and given the nature of the ‘bribes’ made/given to the only witness, it all seems to be something a ‘normal’ judge would have thrown out.
Whatever the circumstances, Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Scotland. I remember following the trial and thinking that this was a mockery. Somebody had to be made responsible for Pan-Am 103 and Megrahi was him.
Fast forward to last week when the Scottish justice minister decided, that as Megrahi was dying, and in theory only had a few months to live, he should be released on compassionate grounds.
Apart from the ‘being soft on terrorists’ angle I’ve found it interesting that many commentators are describing the release as a deal to further economic cooperation between the UK and Libya, all started by Tony Blair who famously visited Colonel Gaddafi in his tent in the desert a few years ago.
The conspiracy theories are that the UK Government, who has absolutely no jurisdiction over Scottish justice affairs, agreed with the Scottish parliament to release Megrahi although they are vehement in their denials about this. Another theory is that the Scottish parliament wanted to show its independence of England and to get the US back for its highly unfair extradition laws, which the UK Government stupidly signed several years ago.
All I know is that if developed, Libya’s oil reserves would make it the 9th largest oil producer in the world, and as we all know, anything can happen when oil is involved. Think Iraq. Think Kuwait. With 37 billion barrels of oil sitting under the Libyan desert I wouldn’t be surprised at anything which comes out in the next few weeks about a ‘deal’.
There is an interesting review of Megrahi’s trial at the following URL.
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