Scotland is set to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the terminally ill former Libyan intelligence agent who was the only person convicted in the terrorist plot to blow up a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988:
Speaking at the Scottish government’s ministerial headquarters in Edinburgh, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said that humanity was a defining characteristic of the Scottish people, and that “our belief dictates that justice be served but mercy be shown.”
He said that Megrahi should “be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya to die.”
In defending his decision, MacAskill said that the former agent “did not show his victims any comfort or compassion. They were not allowed to return to the bosom of their families to see out their lives, let alone their dying days. No compassion was shown by him to them. But that alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days.”
Eight years of a 27-year sentence. Two-hundred and seventy dead innocents, 189 of them American citizens.
Indiscriminate slaughter, an absolute absence of remorse and a compassionate discharge.
Thus, justice.
In possibly unrelated news, British exports to Libya last year were up 66% over the year prior.
Had it been 189 Scots, would the decision have been different?
One can only fantasize that an unexplained accident befalls the aircraft taking him home.
Damn. Does this mean that I have to quit drinking Scotch?
We should do another aerial intercept like we did with the “Achille Lauro” hijackers.
They probably just decided not to spend any more money on his government funded health care. Just a budgetary decision, I’m sure.
I hope they report his death, which will probably be in about 20 years.
My next door neighbor lost her sister and both her college-age nieces when flight 103 when down. My old college theater professor lost his daughter. All of the young ladies were students at my college alma mater, returning home from a trip abroad.
I say let him rot in jail. Shame I don’t get a vote.
Just one muslim country not wishing to offend another muslim country. Having Scottish ancestry traced back to 796 AD I’m gagging on this. Justice this is not.
Look at it in the cold light of Nationalized Health Care. He was terminally ill (according to the article). He was in prison at taxpayer’s expense. (a reasonable assumption). Terminal health care would have cost a bunch. (can’t let him rot with no medical care, that’s be inhumane). How to reduce cost? Put him on a plane and send him back to Libya. I’d call that prison bureaucratic planning to manage inmate costs. Brilliant! Cost shift the problem elsewhere.
Hey JoeC, Scottish “death panel”?
He was terminally ill. Compassion should have dictated quick death, guillotine type, head on a pike just for good measure, afterall, he would already be dead. Alas, I’m not Queen.
our belief dictates that justice be served but mercy be shown
And what mercy did he show the 270 victims he murdered? I wonder how the families of the 11 Scottish victims feel about “Scottish values” being exercised in this fashion.
This disgusts me so much. A family who went to my church (in another state) lost their son on that flight. I never knew them personally but our regional community grieved with them. I vividly remember the prayers given the Sunday afterwards.
That this scum gets to spend his last days in the comforting arms of his family, all the while being treated as a hero by his country – whilst the families of the vicitms still have an empty place at their tables…
This isn’t justice. It’s something else so perverse and twisted.
Yeah, I guess “Life Sentences” don’t mean what we think they should mean anymore…
Megrahi said: ‘My continued incarceration in HMP Greenock is not conducive to my well-being as my life nears its end.
‘Whilst everything is being done to make my time here as comfortable as possible, the personnel within the prison are hardly equipped to deal with the many aspects of my terminal illness.
‘It is my view that imprisonment is hastening my decline.’
Boo-f…-hoo.
This … is what this scum wrote to the prison officials while requesting compassionate release.
And they listened. Not conducive to his well-being? Because a bomb on a plane is so life-affirming.
Piece of shite.
Should’ve “compasionately released” his ass from 30,000 feet.
Rob beat me to it! I’m okay with returning him to his homeland, provided its done in pieces. Shouldn’t really be surprised at this example of the continued emasculation of Great Britain, but I am a bit shocked this travesty took place in Scotland. (Sigh)
Are you kidding me? Scotland is the most socialist part of the UK. I don’t know what they’ve drunk, but it isn’t scotch.
What, all we all of a sudden giving out FREE Lunches? Since when??? Under what premise? Did this guy learn his lesson? Who knows, right? Well I guess we’ll have to find out the hard way, maybe???
“Back in the day,” the official sanction of the state to effect the ultimate punishment for wrong-doing was thought so important that one could read newspaper headlines like: “Goering cheats death by committing suicide!”
Alas, these days officialdom and much of what passes for “Western Civilization” these days doesn’t even bat an eye at release, let alone looking askance at suicide as a way out.
Had they sentenced him to death from the get-go, none of this would be an issue. Pansy-@$$ courts, and all.
Well, the one consolation that we have is the fact that this piece of @#$@%^@ will face a far worse judgement (upon his demise) than we could ever dream of.
@GuyC ~ yes, but not soon enough for my liking.
I’m with Bou, and Rob1855. I’m shocked at how Scottish thought has deteriorated since I last checked.
Marianne
The UK has gone simply off the rails. Just hand the keys over and turn off the lights…
The strange thing about this event is that the day of Lockerbie we took my parents on the Christmas boat tour in Huntington Bch. CA. I remember boarding the bus that took us from the parking center to the boat. The bus had a TV that was showing the images of the downed plane.
My two children ages 4 and 22 months were along with us. It was a cold night. At one point the 22 month old got away from us and fell into the engine compartment of the boat. He fell about 8 feet… The boat was stopped and the lights turned on. As it turned out he was unharmed as I had him dressed up like the Michelan man… totally ensconced in protective clothing.
I do not mean to belittle the terrible events that took place that day however, we all have our perspective. I bet that little devil of a kid of mine bounced when he hit!
It was one of those age old arguments “You were supposed to be in charge of him.” “No, I gave you charge of him!” Thank God he wasn’t injured.
As for the murderer; he should have died chained to a wall…
Well, he may still have enough time left to kill a few more infidels before he checks out.
I wonder what the Scots would have to say about that?
I wonder if he really has only three months left to live? For men with prostate cancer, the relative 5-year survival rate is 100%, the relative 10-year survival rate is 91%. The 15-year relative survival rate is 76%.
What’s that old quote about no peace without justice? This brings that to mind.
I don’t remember the exact number, but survival rates for prostate cancer in the United Kingdom are much lower than in the US.
Another quality defense of the West by our Secretary of State and this thus far pathetic administration. How will they reason with our enemies when they can’t even convince our so-called friends?
Aside from the release of this scumbag, I found a few other related items to be particularly offensive:
1. Gaddafi sends this guy a personal executive jet for the ride home…in luxury.
2. A crowd was assembled to greet said scumbag when he arrived, and to celebrate their victory over the weak minded infidels.
3. Nobody shot the bastard down enroute.
My Scottish ancestors have got to be howling with rage at what happened today, and I’m not far behind.
I lost friends in Pan Am 103–fellow Syracuse University students, people I had gone through orientation with and sat next to
in classes, drank with, laughed with, people who should be raising families instead of moldering in graves. I have a lot of compassion and a lot of tolerance, but not here, not now.
Mercy for a mass murderer for hire should be as much morphine as he desires until he dies.
Life in prison should mean “die in prison” and burial in a unmarked grave on prison grounds.
Anything less is cruelty to the relatives of his victims.
Because many generations ago some of my ancestors left Scotland for Ireland where they spent several generations and thence on to Canada for a few more generations before arriving in the United States where my mother was born, I am willing to make a distinction between the people of Scotland and the government of Scotland. Kind of like I do for our own country.
I know the argument: “But it’s the people who elect the government!” Of course it is — just as we do here. But recall — the vast majority of Americans (many of whom did not bother to participate at all) did not vote for Comrade Obama and his now-appointed Commissars.
So lets give the Scots a break, drink their fine beverages, and have faith that Abdel is now out in the open where the long arm of the CIA (or SOF) may reach out and touch him. Me? I’m hoping for some non-fatal gut shots the first time and a head shot a year or so later. Taking down the plane sent to pick him up would have taken out some pilots and crew who were simply trying to make a living — kind of like most of those on Pan Am Flight 103. No justice there.
One of my much older cousins was a career Stewardess (long before the PC ‘Flight Attendant’) for Pan American who was long retired by the time of the bombing, but she was the first one I thought of when I heard the news, and I think of her every time Flight 103 is mentioned. I can only begin to appreciate the feelings of the families more directly involved.
I have no use for a cult that would bomb a plane and continues similar actions to this day. The sooner it is eliminated, the sooner the world will be a better place.
Grampa Bluewater/
You’re going soft in your old age. Why show any “Mercy” at all? All the morphine he wants is too good for the swine. Let him die of old age in abject pain and misery with the worst sort of long, drawn-out, most pain inducing chronic debilitating disease possible.
Anybody want to take bets that Gaddafi brings in some specialist and this guy “lingers” around for another 20-30 years?
The UK government wouldn’t touch this because it falls under Scottish legal authority, and don’t look now, but Labour is on the verge of losing Scotland to the Scottish National Party. There is a reason the Libyan’s were waving Scottish flags and not the Union Jack.
I have Scottish ancestry as well, but let’s give credit where credit is due. The Scots march to their own drum, and in general, have not supported American interests.
Why wasn’t there a US Marshal there waiting with papers for extradition back to the US the moment he stepped out of prison? Would there not be grounds for jurisdiction since it was a US registered aircraft? Inconceivable that he has been let go with so little fanfare….
IIRC – The only reason he was tried in Scotland is they had no death penalty. And there was some hand wringing and bed wetting going on about the possibility of this scum being extradited to the U.S. where he WOULD have faced the death penalty if tried in Federal court. As a compromise, I believe the U.S. agreed to letting him be tried in Scotland, and again, his sentence was ‘life’ in prison. Well, as in the U.S., we have seen ‘life in prison’ doesn’t exactly mean what you would think ‘life’ means. Some places ‘life’ is as little as 20 years (but my memory may be faulty on that…. I haven’t spent the Google time to dredge up the half remembered news story.)
The more I think about this, the more my blood boils. I’d love to return to the Grampian Highlands village of my ancestors and piss on their local pub bar, and challenge anyone to stop me. Of course, I’ll wear a keffiyeh and spout off Arabic slogans of “piss on yer ancestors graves you f—-g limey bastards”. Really insult them, tho they won’t know it. Lord, how far we’ve fallen.
Maybe the best course of action is we all write to the Scottish Board of Tourism and tell them not only no, but hell no we ain’t gonna tour your s__t infested country.
/Rant out.
Can it be mere coincidence that BP (British Petroleum) just negotiated a deal for Libyan oil?
Don’t know Mike, but considering that BP is 42% owned by Brits and 38% owned by Americans, the citizens of both countries bear as much responsibility.
http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9010453&contentId=7019612