Reports Lockerbie Convict Will Be Released

Politics International Politics
1

The mind, once again, boggles.

Reports Lockerbie Convict Will Be Released
“According to reports in the British and American press, the Scottish government is expected to announce on Thursday that it is releasing Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in connection with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.”

In case one is unfamiliar with the actions of this mass murderer:

[i]"Pan Am flight 103 exploded at 31,000 feet altitude, killing 259 passengers and crew, plus 11 people on the ground. Anyone who has ever flown can only imagine the terror these people experienced.

Flight 103 was over Lockerbie when it exploded. Many residents described the sky lighting up and a large, deafening roar. They soon saw pieces of the plane as well as pieces of bodies landing in fields, in backyards, on fences, and on rooftops. Fuel from the plane was already on fire before it hit the ground; some of it landed on houses, making the houses explode.

One of the plane’s wings hit the ground in the southern area of Lockerbie. It hit the ground with such impact that it created a crater 155 feet long, displacing approximately 1500 tons of dirt. The nose of the airplane landed mostly intact in a field about four miles from the town of Lockerbie. Many said the nose reminded them of a fish’s head cut off from its body.

Wreckage was strewn over 50 square miles. Twenty-one of Lockerbie’s houses were completely destroyed and eleven of its residents were dead. Thus, the total death toll was 270 (the 259 aboard the plane plus the 11 on the ground).

It took 11 years to track down the perpetrators of this vicious attack. On January 31, 2001, Megrahi was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment."[/i]
Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 Over Lockerbie


“A minute later, the wing section containing 200,000 lb [29,200 gal] of fuel hit the ground at Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie. The British Geological Survey at Eskdalemuir, just outside Lockerbie, registered a seismic event measuring 1.6 on the Richter scale as all trace of two families, several houses, and the 196 ft (60 m) wing of the aircraft disappeared. A British Airways pilot, Captain Robin Chamberlain, flying the Glasgow–London shuttle near Carlisle called Scottish to report that he could see a massive fire on the ground.”

Sheer madness to release this animal.

2

But he dropped his appeal days ago. Can he still be released if the crown appeal is resolved that way?

This guy is all over the press as a scapegoat in order to allow the rehab of Gadafi and the escape of the people who masterminded Lockerbie. Reuters on the shakiness of his conviction: uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE57B5QU20090813

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Further info from boycottscotland.com :

[quote]Boycott Scotland and the United Kingdom
Don’t Free Abdel Baset al-Megrahi!

The government of Scotland has decided to release convicted Lockerbie terrorist bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on “compassionate grounds.”

The government of the United Kingdom has washed its hands of the entire affair, allowing the Scottish government total freedom in taking this perfidious action against the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103.

The actions of the Scottish government are inexcusable. A man who is responsible for the mass murder of 270 innocent civilians must be held accountable for such a cold blooded and ruthless act. Freeing a terrorist in order to further ties with the tyrannical Libyan regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi and to further the commercial interests of British Petroleum in that region is repulsive and sickening.

Unless the Scottish government rescinds this decision to release al-Megrahi, and if the British Parliament continues to avoid intervening in the matter, we urge all Americans to protest this action by boycotting the United Kingdom and Scotland in full. Don’t travel to Scotland or do business there (or in the United Kingdom in general) and don’t buy any British or Scottish products.

Most especially after the horrific events of 9/11, the world needs to be reminded that terrorism must be punished and never rewarded. Terrorists must never be shown compassion or mercy, for these people have no respect for human life. The British, who ironically have themselves been victim to numerous acts of terrorism on their own soil, seem to have forgotten. They need a reminder, and protesting by boycotting travel and business with Scotland and the United Kingdom is the best way of doing so.

EXTERNAL LINKS

The Official Website of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103

National September 11 Memorial & Museum

NEWS ARTICLES AND COMMENTARY

NY POST:No mercy for murderer: Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bomber must finish sentence, cancer or no

NY TIMES: Scotland Appears Poised to Return Pan Am Bomber

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Hillary Clinton urges Scotland to keep Lockerbie bomber

Find more related news articles through Google News[/quote]

4

Well, toodle-pip, then.

BBC just announced the release and details of the case.

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Scotland has rules that provide compassion to any prisoner who is terminally ill with less than three months to live. If you want others to live by humanitarian principles, then I think it’s wise to demonstrate that you are committed to your own.

He doesn’t deserve compassion, if you ask me, but I’m impressed that others showed stronger character than I might have if the choice was mine.

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I’m opposed to his release on compassionate grounds- if he did it, let him rot- but, while not normally a big conspiracy theorist, there are some pretty strong grounds for doubt about the original conviction.

There’s a lot of evidence pointing to a Syria/Iran connection, with the actual bombing having been carried out by the PFLP:

[quote]There were plenty of reasons to suspect Libya and its eccentric ruler, Muammar Kaddafi, of wanting to blow up an American airliner in 1988. A confrontation between American and Libyan warships in the Mediterranean in 1985 was followed by a fatal bombing at a German discotheque frequented by American servicemen. The Reagan administration had responded with a bombing raid on Libya’s capital that seemed intended to kill Kaddafi himself; the raid hit one of his palaces and killed his daughter. The Libyan leader had vowed revenge.

But there were numerous other entities—both states and freelance terror groups—with the motive and means to attack the United States. The most likely suspect, in the opinion of many experts, was Iran, which had not accepted American apologies for accidentally shooting down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf the previous summer, with the loss of 290 lives. Iran, through its ally Syria, supported a par-ticularly bloodthirsty terror group known by its initials, PFLP-GC (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command), which was known to be building bombs with barometric triggers, the kind you would use to blow up an airplane. West German police had rounded up a PFLP-GC cell just a few months earlier and seized several of the devices, which were hidden, like the one that blew up Pan Am 103, in Toshiba boomboxes. So it was certainly plausible that the Iranians had directed the group to attack an American airplane, and many people, especially in Britain, still believe it.

To put it simply, they didn’t trust the evidence against Megrahi because it fit too conveniently with American foreign-policy aims in the early 1990s. The United States wasn’t looking to pick a fight with Iran, a well-armed nation of 70 million and the enemy of America’s least-favorite Arab ruler, Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Nor was it looking for excuses to quarrel with Syria, which had positioned itself as the key to Arab-Israeli peace. But Libya, isolated in North Africa, with a population of 5 million and a ruler most of the world regarded as crazy any-way, was a perfectly safe choice for pariah. The piece of circuit board that helped finger Megrahi was known to be among batch of timers sold to Libyan intelligence. The match was made by an FBI investigator using data supplied by the CIA. For some people, that was evidence enough—not to convict Megrahi, but to exonerate him.[/quote]

newsweek.com/id/212937

As well, when Gaddafi agreed to turn over Megrahi it was part of the negotiations to get sanctions lifted, and underwrite Gaddafi’s rehabilitation to the point where today John McCain can visit with him and report it as “an interesting talk with an interesting guy”, and both British and American oil companies can do multi-billion dollar deals with Lbya.

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[quote=“Stray Dog”]Scotland has rules that provide compassion to any prisoner who is terminally ill with less than three months to live. If you want others to live by humanitarian principles, then I think it’s wise to demonstrate that you are committed to your own.

He doesn’t deserve compassion, if you ask me, but I’m impressed that others showed stronger character than I might have if the choice was mine.[/quote]

I agree. If you have rules regarding compassion, they apply to everyone. It’s as simple as that.

Moreover, if he did it, then it’s safe to assume that he did not act on his own, but that he acted on orders from somebody else. I think that the real culprit behind this was Ghadaffi, and well, nobody is going to imprison him for now.

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More:

[quote]For more than a year after the bombing the agencies pointed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, led by Ahmed Jibril. Two months before the Lockerbie disaster German police had arrested members of the PFLP-GC near Frankfurt where, according to the prosecution, the bag containing the bomb was placed on the Pan Am airliner.

The widespread view was that the bombing was funded by Iran in retaliation for the mistaken shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes, over the Persian Gulf in July 1988. Those who question Libya’s involvement note that the US and Britain changed tack after the Gulf war in 1990, when they badly needed the quiescence of Iran and the support of Syria, which was then protecting Jibril.[/quote]

guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/1 … er-release

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I thought the issue about illegal orders was settled some time ago? I think the Scots just lost thier role as impartial jailor, not that they were eager for it.

If only the victims of the bombing could be so lucky as to have lived long enough to die of cancer!

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Scotland did the right thing. The difference between western law and sharia law is compassion.
Scotland practiced what they preached.

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What’s this to do with Sharia Law?

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In TC’s boycott-compassionate-nations quote, you get a very good idea of the point some of us are making.

That to me sounds like the language of the terrorists themselves, and of anyone who regards the US or other country as not respecting their own country’s human rights.

Not a great way to promote peace and security, methinks; granting a political convict and alleged terrorist compassionate leave to die does.

Again, my personal thoughts about how much compassion murderers should be shown do not count, and that’s probably a good thing.

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Compassion is what separates “us” from “them”. If we waterboarded or decapitated him, how can we claim to be better?

I would have preferred him to rot in there. But they say he’s going to be dead in a couple of months, so what’s the harm?

Boycotting your biggest supporter in the war on terror sounds like a fantastic idea :thumbsup:

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Still has nothing to do with Sharia Law. Besides, what version of Sharia Law?

  • The one that says and eye for an eye and begets honor killings?
  • The one that stones women for adultery?
  • The one that paddles a model in public for drinking alcohol?

Or the other one that operates like a small claims court - an Islamic Judge Judy?

If the conviction is bad, then overturn it, but don’t muddle the two issues. Don’t use compassion as a proxy for justice poorly delivered. Compassion when it comes to terminal illnesses for convicted killers who have shown little compasion for thier victims makes no sense.

As for the, “If god be for us, who could be against us”, idiology of the nerocons. I don’t buy that either.

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One thing which has always worried me when it comes to the war on terror and all that is when we look back to the European terrorist groups in the 1970’s.

Their goal with their terror was to show that western society was a repressive society, IE that the countermeasures against their terror would erode the freedoms enjoyed by the people and thus turn them against western democracy.

That did not happen, thank God. While chasing the terrorists, and protecting the individuals most at risk, the western societies did not become closed, did not limit personal liberty in general, and did not show that personal freedom was mere lies.

After 9/11, US failed that test miserably. personal freedoms have been curtailed, and if anything the anti-terrorist legislation coming into effect since 2001 have limited our liberties, and have also seen the governments of the US, UK and others becoming more like the system they fight.

The west’s idelogical raison d’etre is to make sure that we live in free, open and prosperous societies. If we limit that freedom and openness as a consequence of this we lose the war.

George W. Bush was not smart enough to see this, and allowed the shadier forces in his administration to assault the fundamentals of western civilization with impunity, and market the assault as a protection of those values.

As we should extend the same treatment to all, including all mortally ill inmates, we have no choice but to release him.

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Mr. He -
Unfortunately for your position, the loss of those liberties has not manifested in the USA.

And, looking at things 8 yrs later, what has transpired is that terrorist groups inside the USA have been found to much more widely spread and entrenched than previously imagined.
Large terrorist funding and training groups have been exposed and prosecuted as a result of the “wake-up” after 9/11.

Perhaps if you could specifically point out which personal freedoms have been curtailed in the USA your position might be better advanced?

Colorful rhetoric…but lacking in real content.

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[quote=“Mr He”]One thing which has always worried me when it comes to the war on terror and all that is when we look back to the European terrorist groups in the 1970’s.

Their goal with their terror was to show that western society was a repressive society, IE that the countermeasures against their terror would erode the freedoms enjoyed by the people and thus turn them against western democracy.

That did not happen, thank God. While chasing the terrorists, and protecting the individuals most at risk, the western societies did not become closed, did not limit personal liberty in general, and did not show that personal freedom was mere lies.

After 9/11, US failed that test miserably. personal freedoms have been curtailed, and if anything the anti-terrorist legislation coming into effect since 2001 have limited our liberties, and have also seen the governments of the US, UK and others becoming more like the system they fight.

The west’s idelogical raison d’etre is to make sure that we live in free, open and prosperous societies. If we limit that freedom and openness as a consequence of this we lose the war.

George W. Bush was not smart enough to see this, and allowed the shadier forces in his administration to assault the fundamentals of western civilization with impunity, and market the assault as a protection of those values.

As we should extend the same treatment to all, including all mortally ill inmates, we have no choice but to release him.[/quote]

Great post. Couldn’t agree more. :bravo:

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I would agree that the Patriot Act is a failure and some parts violate the 4th amendment. But I’m not so convinced that Europe got it right. Generally European gov. agencies have more powers to arrest and hold to start with.

Examples being the UK Prevention of Terrorism Acts in response to the troubles The Reale Act in Italy that allows detention without court orders of France where detaininees can be held while evidence is gathered - all passed during the 80’s. In most EU countries these powers were increased following 9/11.

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[quote=“Elegua”]I would agree that the Patriot Act is a failure and some parts violate the 4th amendment. But I’m not so convinced that Europe got it right. Generally European gov. agencies have more powers to arrest and hold to start with.

Examples being the UK Prevention of Terrorism Acts in response to the troubles The Reale Act in Italy that allows detention without court orders of France where detaininees can be held while evidence is gathered - all passed during the 80’s. In most EU countries these powers were increased following 9/11.[/quote]

Well, in Britland, we had terrorists of our own. Funded by the US and Libya.

Got fucking ridiculous during Blair’s reign, though. More CCTV cameras than any other country, ID cards for foreigners (though thankfully they stopped short of blanket introduction). But we’re all saaaaafe now. Unless you’re a Brazilian in a baggy jacket.

Me, I am happy that the Americans do not realise that the rest of the UK has no say over Scottish judicial decisions, but am regretful that this boycott could not have been effected before the summer tourist season, in Oxford.

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:laughing: There is going to be a boycott? What are we going to boycott? :ponder: There is no equivalent to Freedom Fries is there? I dunno…Sauce Anglaise to Sauce a Liberte?