The al-Megrahi Miracle Misses The Point
It’s exactly a year ago today that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was freed on compassionate grounds by the SNP-led Scottish government after receiving a doctor’s report saying that he had only got three months to live. Today there is a report that he might live for another seven years.
The continuing ability of this release to infuriate people surfaced again last month during David Cameron’s visit to Washington and it hasn’t really died down since. Alex Salmond is on Sky News right now trying to pass the buck to the doctors and Kenny MacAskill.
The whole argument about the medical advice is missing the point – the fact is that releasing him was the wrong decision. It makes no odds whether he was dying or in fine health…he was found guilty of murdering hundreds of people. Even if you take a harsh view of the quality of the evidence or the trial procedure in Scotland, the fact remains that in law he was found guilty and should die in prison.
Would we release Peter Sutcliffe? Or Harold Shipman? Or any mass murderer? Should we, even if they are demonstrably in their final days? No! For mass murderers the whole point of a true life sentence is that you will never get out. Ever.
The problem is ASE you’re talking about English law. Here it is different. Whether the release was right or wrong that’s not the point. The letter of the law was followed exactly.
I agree that the letter of the law was followed precisely. Perhaps the written medium is not the best way to convey my point. Technically there was no error. Politically it all seems to have been decided by the right people. Aside from nit-picking about the qualifications of the doctor its difficult to find a part of the process to criticise.
It’s just that deep seated feeling that someone who did something like that should have been punished more. That on some moral level the punishment didn’t fit the crime. That the sight of him celebrating whilst hundreds of families still mourn is perverse. The feeling of impotence when the UK Govt asks Libya oh so very politely if they wouldn’t mind not inviting the world’s press to a great big Getting Out One-Year-On Party.
It’s emotion which drives my sense of wrongness here, not law. Okay you can’t run a country that way, I admit, but I don’t feel that the man suffered in any way proportionately to the evil he did.