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Lockerbie Decision: The Backlash Begins

Alex Massie

Thursday, 20th August 2009

I was wrong. I argued that people can disagree in good faith on the question as to whether Kenny MacAskill was correct to let Abdebaset Ali al-Megrahi return to Libya to die. I should hav known better. Those who think the decision mistaken appear to believe there are no reasons - none! - to support taking a different view.

Douglas Carswell, for instance, thinks it awful that a lack of compassion (on Megrahi's part) should be met by a degree of compassion (on the part of the Scottish legal system). That's a valid point, but it's equally valid to note that our justice system is not in fact predicated upon the principle of an eye for an eye. Indeed, if you were of a religious mind, you might argue that MacAskill's choice was informed by the New Testament, not the Old.

Over at the Telegraph, Con Coughlin, Nile Gardner and my old friend Gerald Warner are all (predictably) outraged. Con Coughlin concludes his piece thus:

The decision to release Megrahi also raises the risk of a serious rift between Britain and Washington, which bitterly opposed the Libya’s return home. Hopefully the State Department realises that the loony-tunes who run Holyrood do not speak for the entire British nation, only the Scots. Perhaps the Americans can respond by imposing sanctions against the SNP?

Meanwhile, Tory Bear fumes:

What do you expect when you elect what should be no more than a lunatic-fringe pressure group to run a region. The Scottish Executive have embarrassed themselves today. The UK as a whole has been shamed by a jumped up county council.

And over at the Economist, Bagehot decides that there's nothing to be gained by looking at any of the, you know, actual issues, and instead claims that:

But the episode will I expect sully the whole idea of Scottish devolution for many, and not just on right-wing American talk shows, where Mr MacAskill will doubtless be eaten alive in absentia. There is a cynical view of parties such as the SNP, and of devolution processes such as Scotland's, which is that their main purpose is to give frustrated and troublesome mediocrities the shot at power they would never manage in a bigger, more competitive polity. That theory looked pretty plausible today.

Each of these pundits seem to think that this was an easy decision; each of them assumes, with little evidence to support their presumptions, that the SNP ministry in Edinburgh cannot possibly have reached this decision in good faith.

Maybe they are correct to think that it is politically motivated by the opportunity to jump up and down on the world stage in the hope that such aggrandisement will impress the Scottish electorate. If - and this allegation remains unproven - that is the case then, actually, the hostility of the reaction to MacAskill's decision and the belittling of Scotland that accompanies it will be what helps the SNP, not the decision itself. As we saw last week, when other people started to rubbish the NHS many Britons with no great faith in the system felt somewhat put out and even moved to defend it. Well, the more Jock-bashing there is from London and elsewhere, so the more people will think that MacAskill's decision had some merit.

The case is certainly complicated by the fact that though the United States was the primary target of the bombing, the crime itself happened on Scottish jurisdiction. That necessarily means that Washington's representations deserve to be listened to and treated seriously. But it emphatically does not mean that those concerns must carry the day or dictate the verdict. To think otherwise is to undermine the independence and integrity of the legal system and offer a foreign government a quite unacceptable power of veto.

And it is not as if Westminster politicians have always insisted that terrorists serve their entire sentence. You can argue, plausibly, that releasing convicted IRA and Loyalist terrorists was a necessary part of the Ulster "peace process" but it is not clear to me that releasing terrorists for the sake of a grubby, imperfect political deal must be less dishonourable than releasing a man on the compassionate grounds that he will be dead within a few weeks.

Equally, some pundits seem to be under the misapprehension that this is all an unfortunate consequence of devolution. Not so. This would still have been a matter for Scotland, not the UK government. I believe - commenters will correct me if I'm wrong - that it would have been a question for the Lord Avocate, presumably in consultation with the Secretary of State for Scotland, to decide. It would not have been the Prime Minister's business.

Now a Tory or Labour Lord Advocate - or now, ministry at Holyrood - might have taken a different decision. But not necessarily. Each would have been as determined as MacAskill and the SNP to safeguard the independence and probity of the Scottish legal system.

As I say, good people should be able to disagree in good faith on this issue. I hold no particular brief for the SNP, but while the affair might have been handled more cleanly, it is not obvious that they were out of their depth, not least because the advice they received came from the same people as would have been offering advice and guidance, regardless of the party in power at Holyrood or, for that matter, the existence of Holyrood itself.

Since I tend to take a pretty liberal view of criminal justice matters in general I'm disposed to taking a charitable view of all this. But I can quite see why others are less inclined to do so. Perhaps you'd feel an extra measure of satisfaction or think that justuce would be better served if Megrahi died in prison; I'm not sure I do.

Filed under: Lockerbie (13 more articles) , Scotland (208 more articles) , SNP (58 more articles) , Terrorism (116 more articles)

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Craig Strachan

August 20th, 2009 6:56pm Report this comment

Alex: "Perhaps you'd feel an extra measure of satisfaction or think that justuce would be better served if Megrahi died in prison; I'm not sure I do."

You are basically allowing that there is no crime so heinous that life should mean life.

If Ian Brady were to be stricken with terminal cancer, should he be released on compassionate grounds?

Edward McLaughlin

August 20th, 2009 7:04pm Report this comment

If we had capital punishment in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the people, then all this malarky could have been avoided.

He should have been executed.

ndm

August 20th, 2009 7:32pm Report this comment

-- He should have been executed.

I love the way someone complaining about a convicted murder is so in thrall to state-sponsored murder.

Winston Smith

August 20th, 2009 7:45pm Report this comment

If anyone bothers to actually READ the evidence against him at his trail, it is clear to anyone with half a brain that he is innocent. Those who are 'outraged' at his release should do some research which will show that a miscarraige of justice was carried out in this case.

The Oncoming Storm

August 20th, 2009 8:17pm Report this comment

I wonder how long it will be before Limbaugh and Hannity are calling on Americans to boycott Scotland and Scottish goods, probably resulting in public displays of kilt burning and Johnnie Walker Gold Label being poured down gutters?

Alex Massie

August 20th, 2009 8:26pm Report this comment

Craig: Yes, as a general rule, I think that there is little to be gained by keeping someone in prison if they are suffering from a terminal illness that is going to end their days in short order.

I understand why others disagree with that. But don't think there is anything especially reprehensible about my view.

As for the Moors murders: I think it was a disgrace that Hindley was kept in prison as long as she was, long past the point at which anyone else would have been released.

As for Brady: yes, if he had only a month or so to live, I would not feel cheated or let down if he were released.

"Life should mean life" is fine, but once a terminal illness reaches this point then life is, in many ways, already over and I find it hard to see what is really gained by keeping such prisoners inside.

Andrew Hart

August 20th, 2009 8:38pm Report this comment

The problem is that this mass murderer was far less deserving of compassion than the families of all the people that he murdered. He served about 28 days for each of the people he murdered. None of them got to die at home in the company of their love dones. So, MacAskill's may have been compassionate to Megrahi, but it was certainly not to all of the victims and their loved ones forced to relive it all over again as they watch this guy skip off to his private jet carrying him to what will. in all likelihood, be a "heroe's" welcome.

Craig Strachan

August 20th, 2009 10:40pm Report this comment

Alex,

Well, at least your view is consistent. And no, it's not reprehensible - just flat wrong, IMHO!

Craig Strachan

August 20th, 2009 11:24pm Report this comment

The Oncoming Storm: "I wonder how long it will be before Limbaugh and Hannity are calling on Americans to boycott Scotland and Scottish goods"

Well, I have to wonder if the Scottish Executive will be using Meghrai's mugshot to promote Scotland's "compassionate" justice system when Alex Salmond smarms his way over here next "Tartan Day"?

And who knew that the "Homecoming" applied to convicted Libyan terrorists and all?

Ben

August 21st, 2009 12:36am Report this comment

Alex can't resist the temptation to malign the Hebrew Bible (which he disparagingly calls the Old Testament), and he also misapplies the Christian, and Jewish, doctrine of forgiveness.

A person forgives someone for transgressions committed only against himself. He is not entitled to forgive crimes committed by another against a third person. That it is necessary to repeat this obvious principle is a mark of how morally illiterate Alex's position is.

The Talmud says "He who shows compassion to the cruel is destined to end up showing cruelty to the compassionate". For Alex to dismiss the primality of the concerns of the US, whose nationals were the majority of the victims, and who were the real targets of this crime, is further indication of the bovine anti-US animus that exists among so many in Britain.

Mark

August 21st, 2009 8:36am Report this comment

If the man was innocent then there is due procedure to put this correct. Releasing somebody convicted of murdering 220 people because of ill health on the grounds of compassion whilst at the same time finding it ok to use torture is so hypocritical it stinks of political manouvering.

Is it coincidental that both Brown and Mandleson met with Gedaffi just weeks before the release? Selling justice (and until proven otherwise in a court of law justice was achieved) for politcal gain is something that should never happen in a civilised society and yet we had it with the IRA terrorist released and now with the lockerby bomber.

What ever happened to right and wrong in this country? Is everything for sale now???

Drakken

August 21st, 2009 8:57am Report this comment

No small wonder we in the US look at you compassionate Brits with such utter contempt. Just goes to show ya, Ya just can't fix stupid !

aly

August 21st, 2009 9:10am Report this comment

Personally, I'd have kept him inside until he dropped off, but McAskill's call.

And you'll excuse me if I don't get that bothered about the opinion of a nation which spent decades arguing for the release of IRA murderers (and, indeed, blocking their extradition).

ndm

August 21st, 2009 11:10am Report this comment

Ben writes:

-- Alex can't resist the temptation to malign the Hebrew Bible (which he disparagingly calls the Old Testament), and he also misapplies the Christian, and Jewish, doctrine of forgiveness.

I will forgive Ben's transgression in not knowing that the "Hebrew Bible" is routinely and correctly referred to as the Old Testament in Scotland if not the rest of Britain. I am less charitable in Ben's assertion that Alex Massie misapplies the Christian doctrine of forgiveness. Jesus himself condemned the Old Testament formulation of "an eye for an eye: when he said in the Sermon on the Mount:

-- Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Ben continues:

-- The Talmud says "He who shows compassion to the cruel is destined to end up showing cruelty to the compassionate". For Alex to dismiss the primality of the concerns of the US, whose nationals were the majority of the victims, and who were the real targets of this crime, is further indication of the bovine anti-US animus that exists among so many in Britain.

I'm sure we can all look in some good book and find words to justify anything we seek to prosecute but the Talmud has only minimal relevance to Scotland and the decision Kenny MacAskill made yesterday. Indeed, this particular passage is deeply inimical to the moral and cultural traditions of Scotland. The primacy in this case clearly resides within the Scottish legal system and the traditions in which it exists. That is not to say it should not listen to the opinions of other but they should only be considered within the context of its rules and procedures. This should be obvious to anyone familiar with the debate in the United States as to whether or not the Supreme Court should take note of legal decisions made elsewhere. To suggest it should do so is viewed almost as an act of treason.

As to the suggestion that Alex Massie's comment "is further indication of the bovine anti-US animus that exists among so many in Britain." I hope he will not be too upset if I suggest this to be ludicrous. Having lived in the US for a number of years Alex Massie obviously has a great appreciation for the country, demonstrated by his attempts to explain the US to his fellow nationals. It is imbecilic to suggest he has an animosity, bovine or otherwise, to the US.

Richard Kerr

August 21st, 2009 12:01pm Report this comment

It's true, they would be taking the same advice, Alex, but the Justice Secretary wasn't a button then pressed to produce the answer. His insistence on the values to be upheld for Scotland, repeated, naturally, (if not boomingly) throughout his many interviews yesterday show his thinking in full or rather what he ultimately used as the justification for his desicion. So I wonder: would sales of whisky have went down if he had thought the other way? Shortbread fingers found on scrap heaps all over Fife because no one wants them incase there's terrorists blood on them? No one coming to pay a fortune for a cup of tea or coffee in Pitlouchry while on holiday because the Scots aren't enlightened people, civillised enough to be around? This was no time for him to offer up a higher authority. No, what is hopefully finishing the guilty man off is just inside him. And not prolonged. I am from Scots stock and find his nonsense exactly that.

TomTom

August 21st, 2009 12:25pm Report this comment

My friends died at Lockerbie. I never believed the perpetrators were caught, tried or convicted - I thought they were excused culpability when Iraq invaded Kuwait and Syria was needed as a fig-leaf.

Libya was an easy scapegoat and until MI6 could turn Ghaddaffi and BP - the NuLabour Oil Company needed reserves - it was convenient to have this man as a hostage to avoid digging up some dirty dealings.

Obviously Whitehall cooked this deal some time ago and timed it for the Glasgow Bye-Election. It is very much of a piece. No doubt MI6 are cutting a deal with Taliban right now for British withdrawal leaving the US in the lurch

JohnMcDonald

August 21st, 2009 1:52pm Report this comment

Hey Strachers! It's "Government" to you mate. Even Mr Obama called it by it's correct name.

Or are you upset that the unionist keep-them-in-their-place language was dropped in 2007?

Aw diddums.

Craig Strachan

August 21st, 2009 3:05pm Report this comment

"Hey Strachers! It's "Government" to you mate"

What kind of a government doesn't raise its own budget?

Edward McLaughlin

August 21st, 2009 4:59pm Report this comment

ndm

Is your statement supposed to point to some kind of inconsistency? My term to describe capital punishment for such a crime would be 'true justice'.

Please note also, the triumphant reception arranged for our mass-murderer back in Libya.

It's going to be a brave jailer who makes this national hero spend one minute more behind bars - which is the line we were given at one stage in this shameful affair.

An Arab nation going back on its word. Now there's a novelty.

Richard Kerr

August 21st, 2009 7:43pm Report this comment

After his release from the Scottish jail, an irony would be there, would it not, if the Libyans were to put him in jail.
Though, of course, he's more chance of going into a jail again than anyone has of shaking hands with William Shakespeare.

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