Scottish Leaders Patsies For London & D.C. On Lockerbie Bomber Release

By Steve Hynd

Most readers know I'm a Scottish ex-pat so I'll be up front about saying I agree with the public reason given for the release of al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of carrying out the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion be available. Our beliefs dictate that justice be served, but mercy be shown. Compassion and mercy are about upholding the beliefs that we seek to live by, remaining true to our values as a people. No matter the severity of the provocation or the atrocity perpetrated.

For these reasons � and these reasons alone � it is my decision that Mr Abdelbasit Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, convicted in 2001 for the Lockerbie bombing, now terminally ill with prostate cancer, be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya to die."

Perhaps its an across-the-pond difference in opinion about what prison is meant to be about , rehabilitation or punishment. Since there's no chance of either now that the guy is on his last legs however, to keep him jailed is simply vindictiveness with no good reason. U.S. critics of the Scottish decision miss something with their "eye for an eye" biblical zeal: no-one ever claimed the moral high ground with "but they're just as bad". It's exactly the same faulty argument that has been used to justify torture and detention without habeas corpus and it's simply wrong.

But now I keep seeing shameless attempts to make political hay from the release, both from the U.S. and from political opponents of the Scottish ruling party, the SNP, in the UK. Those have ranged from the hypocrisy of the Obama administration as personified by the Bush-appointed holdover, FBI director Robert Mueller, who called the decision "a travesty of justice" after arguing for the Iraq war, warrantless eavesdropping and letting torturers get away with their crimes, to the rantings of British neoliberal conspiracy theorists which are entirely intended to attack the SNP to the political advantage of their rival Britain's ruling New Labour party. There have even been murmerings of a boycott of Scottish goods from the High Wingnuts.

Al-Megrahi himself has sent a message in response to these expressions of faux-outrage, while making a statement proclaiming his innocence - something he has maintained all along and for which there is substantial evidence. He said:

"He (Obama) knows I'm a very ill person. The only place I have to go is the hospital for medical treatment. I'm not interested in going anywhere else. Don't worry, Mr Obama - it's just three months."

But as I say, the debate has been taken over by political posturing. It was obvious from the first that Brown's New Labour government in London were setting the SNP executive in Scotland up for a fall. The original statement on al-Megrahi's release showed how:

The United States Attorney General, Eric Holder, was in fact deputy Attorney General to Janet Reno at the time of the pre-trial negotiations. He was adamant that assurances had been given to the United States Government that any person convicted would serve his sentence in Scotland. Many of the American families spoke of the comfort that they placed upon these assurances over the past ten years. That clear understanding was reiterated to me, by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

I sought the views of the United Kingdom Government. I offered them the right to make representations or provide information. They declined to do so. They simply informed me that they saw no legal barrier to transfer and that they gave no assurances to the US Government at the time. They have declined to offer a full explanation as to what was discussed during this time, or to provide any information to substantiate their view. I find that highly regrettable. I therefore do not know what the exact nature of those discussions was, nor what may have been agreed between Governments.

And now, even as his own leader writers continue to pile on the political grandstanding, Matthew Campbell of the Sunday Times has an outstanding bit of journalism explaining the machinations of London and Washington, designed to smooth the path of relations with Libya's dictatorship while letting the Scottish Executive take the political heat. A plan the SNP's less wordly politicians fell for hook, line and sinker. (No, they;re politicians, I don't believe they did it because it was the right thing to do, even if it was.) Read, as they say, the whole thing. But here's the gist.

An agreement struck long ago between Tony Blair and Gadaffi had threatened to fall apart with potentially catastrophic consequences for Britain: it has emerged that Libya threatened to freeze diplomatic relations if Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, said to be suffering from cancer, was not released under a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

In the end, he was freed by Scotland on �compassionate� grounds and escorted home to Tripoli by Saif, who thrust Megrahi�s hand into the air as they came down the steps of Gadaffi�s airliner to a hero�s welcome that has outraged the families of Lockerbie�s victims.

Yesterday the protests were undimmed, but the official responses were evasive � unsurprisingly, because behind Megrahi�s release lie weeks of intrigue between Westminster, Tripoli, Edinburgh and Washington.

Apart from the unfortunate Lockerbie families, everyone seems to have got what they wanted. Gadaffi and his son have their man. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, who signed the release order, has burnished his humanitarian credentials. Gordon Brown has preserved Britain�s politically and economically valuable new relationship with Libya while avoiding any blame for the release. And American politicians have been able to bluster in protest while exercising none of their considerable clout to stop it happening.

The whole exercise reeks of realpolitik and moral evasion.

The reality is that Megrahi�s freedom is a product of the effort to bring Libya out of dangerous isolation. This is as much to America�s advantage as Britain�s, but Washington has too much baggage to be openly involved; it bombed Libya in 1986 in punishment for supporting terrorism, and Gadaffi remains a bogeyman to many Americans. So Britain takes the lead � except when it can devolve the dirty work onto a Scottish politician.

Gordon Brown has refused to make any kind of statement on the transfer of al-Megrahi which might embroil him in the matter, preferring to allow US false protestations of anger to be aimed at his Scottish rivals. Yet Campbell reveals that it was the Brown government which was the motive force behind the release:

�The Foreign Office had been telling the Libyans that they were confident the Scottish government would agree to their prisoner transfer request.�

...British officials strongly denied that they had put pressure on Scotland to release Megrahi � or signed the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya � in order to smooth the way for oil deals. But on the way home to Tripoli on Thursday, Saif seemed to contradict them. �In all commercial contracts for oil and gas with Britain, Megrahi was always on the negotiating table,� he said.

There were anxieties in Edinburgh and Westminster when the Libyans raised the prospect of breaking off diplomatic relations, which in effect would have frozen all British dealings in Libya.

�Look at what he�s done to Switzerland,� said Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya. �He [Gadaffi] can make life very unpleasant for us all.�

... Some of the secret background to Megrahi�s release has now emerged with the leak of a letter from Ivan Lewis, a junior minister at the Foreign Office, encouraging MacAskill to �consider� Libya�s application for Megrahi to be sent home. It is part of the political game of pass the parcel between Brown and Alex Salmond, the nationalist Scottish first minister.

...A source who saw the letter said Lewis added: �I hope on this basis you will now feel able to consider the Libyan application in accordance with the provisions of the prisoner transfer agreement.� The source said the Scottish government interpreted this as an attempt to influence MacAskill�s decision.

Brown�s involvement was highlighted yesterday when Downing Street released a letter he sent to Gadaffi on Thursday, tipping him off that Megrahi�s release was imminent before the decision was announced in Edinburgh.

Campbell writes that Brown relied on the notorious vanity of Salmond to make the ruse work. He also points up American double-think going on.

while politicians and senior administration officials were expressing dismay early last week at the release of a convicted terrorist, a congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate, was in Libya.

McCain reported on Tuesday via Twitter, the instant internet messaging site, that he had met Gadaffi, whom he described as �an interesting man�. McCain was reported by the Libyan news agency to have praised Gadaffi�s peace-making efforts in Africa and to have called for expanded US ties with Libya. Exxon and Chevron, the American oil giants, are among companies vying for lucrative new exploration contracts.

Yesterday, Robert Mueller, the head of the FBI, said Megrahi�s release �rewards a terrorist�. Nevertheless, diplomatic sources said Washington expected Gadaffi to pay his first visit to America later this year for the next UN general assembly.

At stake are lucrative contracts with oil-rich Libya and currying favor with Gaddaffi's heir-apparent, his son Saif al-Islam, who has emerged as Libya's diplomat hero of the affair. America gets its realpolitik, both London and D.C. get contracts for fundraising businessmen and the Scottish Executive are the patsies. Perfect.

Update: More from the Guardian on what the Brown government in London and its venal Scottish lackeys like Jack McConnell (I was at university with the scumbag) knew, when they knew it and how they used it to manouver the Scottish Executive into carrying the can so they could score cheap political points.