Who really freed Megrahi?
Tim Luckhurst 10:48am
Who really freed the Lockerbie bomber? The question cannot be answered by deliberately looking in the wrong place. And for the fortnight since Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, announced Mr Megrahi’s release that is what journalists have been doing, obsessively.
Reporting with the pack mentality that often misdirects them, British newspapers have tried to prove that Gordon Brown authorised the release. Instead they have demonstrated only that the Prime Minister wanted Megrahi to be transferred to Libya under the prisoner transfer scheme, and that he had no power to make it happen.
Granted, Mr Brown and the British Cabinet desired a result that would have appalled Americans nearly as much as the actual outcome has. But their view did not prevail.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was released, not transferred, and his liberation was authorised by the Scottish Executive not the UK Government. The relationships between these tiers of power, and the parties in office in each, are at the root of the confusion afflicting news desks.
Since 1999 the Scottish Executive has exercised power over Scottish domestic affairs. Constitutional purists point out that it is a subsidiary body that can be overruled by the House of Commons. They are right in theory, but the sovereign legislature has been so reluctant to meddle in Scottish policy that it has repeatedly disadvantaged Britain by refusing to.
When Labour ruled in London and Edinburgh attempts were made to cajole Scottish ministers into conformity. Three Labour First Ministers, Donald Dewar, Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell, rebuffed them. By abolishing tuition fees for Scottish students and funding free care for the elderly they infuriated UK minsters who could not afford such policies.
The question journalists have repeatedly failed to ask in the Megrahi case is: if Labour in London could not control Labour in Scotland is it likely that it now controls the Scottish National Party? This matters, because for Gordon Brown (or Jack Straw or David Milliband) to have responsibility for Mr Megrahi’s release it must first be demonstrated that they influenced a decision taken by an SNP minister and an SNP cabinet.
Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, has described his approach to governing devolved Scotland as “making Westminster dance to a Scottish jig.” He relishes every opportunity to provoke tensions and he would be a fool not to. He leads a party committed to severing the union, an outcome to which he has dedicated his career and in which he passionately believes.
This is the manifesto upon which he was elected. His party would harm itself if it put UK interests first. So, it is at least unlikely that the SNP volunteered to release Mr Megrahi simply because Mr Brown did not want him to die in a Scottish Prison.
The facts reinforce this conclusion. After all, the SNP explicitly rejected the UK government’s plan to return him to Libya under the prisoner transfer agreement, as Kenny MacAskill explained, ponderously, when he announced Megrahi’s release.
Whitehall worked hard and disingenuously to conclude the deal that would have allowed Mr Megrahi to serve out his sentence in a Libyan jail. That, not his liberty, was what the UK government wanted. But Mr MacAskill did not transfer the prisoner; he released him on compassionate grounds. This provoked fury in London and Washington. It was supposed to.
Reporters and editors who imagine a cosy deal was done between Labour and the SNP need to consider the personal dimension. Mr Salmond is not one of Brown’s sugars and Gordon loathes Alex at least as cordially as he does David Cameron. It is exceedingly unlikely that Mr Brown will ever lose his seat to a Conservative, but the SNP threatens his future. It threatens Labour’s capacity to win majorities at Westminster too.
Labour designed devolution to smash nationalism, and no matter how utterly that tactic has failed it is pure fantasy to imagine that telephone lines between London and Edinburgh recently buzzed with UK Labour ministers asking Scottish Nationalist ones to "help us out by transferring Megrahi." This decision was taken by the SNP alone. The more interesting question is why?
Of course, it is possible that the SNP leaders made their decision as ministers not as nationalists, giving UK interests priority over ideology, but precedent and the details of this case make that hard to believe.
So far every attempt to show that London applied pressure on Edinburgh has demonstrated only that Downing Street and the Foreign Office profoundly desired an outcome they could not command. Messrs Brown and Straw wanted Megrahi to go home. But there are many things this Labour Government would like the SNP to do and it has done none of them. ‘I want’ rarely gets when you are asking a determined opponent.
The most likely explanation is that the SNP chose to strut their stuff on the international stage by taking a diplomatically sensitive decision that they imagined would damage the UK more than it damaged Scotland and protect the Scottish legal system from the scrutiny that would have occurred during Megrahi’s abandoned appeal. Lazy journalism may help to prove them right, though the Scottish economy will suffer if Americans stop visiting.
Other possibilities include an offer from London that the SNP could not refuse. Did Gordon Brown pledge a future increase in the Scottish block grant or to support the referendum on independence (which Mr Salmond has promised but the Holyrood Parliament opposes)? There is no evidence that an inducement was offered. Any that were would surely have required transfer not release. Still, no matter how thoroughly implausible, bribery is more likely than that the SNP simply volunteered to do Labour’s bidding.
But that is conjecture. My conclusion? The zeitgeist is anti-Labour and Gordon Brown is astoundingly incompetent, but that does not make Brown guilty of this offence. He was willing to trade Megrahi, but his plan was blocked. The SNP released the bomber despite pressure from London. The alternative, to which British journalism has rushed headlong, defies logic. The SNP glories in defying Westminster. It is the party's raison d'etre.
Tim Luckhurst is Professor of Journalism at the University of Kent and a former editor of The Scotsman
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Battle 2807
September 4th, 2009 11:09am Report this commentA very well-thought out article, Mr Luckhurst, and thought-provoking. I tend to agree with you that Salmond would do anything to make the Great Gordo look incompetant. And hasnt he succeeded this time!
Ted
September 4th, 2009 11:17am Report this commentSounds reasonable but it isn't that Labour was involved in freeing Megrahi, it's that Gordon Brown's unwillingness to say what outcome he wanted meant the press searched to find what his actions said. So the double dealings, breaking promises made to the UN and the other countries (chiefly USA) involved were highlighted.
The story isn't Megrahi's release, its the Governments cack handed response and the years of bargaining a convicted mass murderer for strategic reasons and shamefully for oil & gas.
Marcus Cotswell
September 4th, 2009 11:27am Report this commentAt last, a voice of sanity in this affair. It has been difficult to escape the conclusion, following this story in the 'meeja', that most hacks don't know what the blinking hell they are talking about.
barnacle bill
September 4th, 2009 11:28am Report this commentPersonally I think a very smooth political operator who stands behind NuLabor's throne bounced the SNP into taking the path they did by laying the prisoner transfer agreement on the table.
Where it failed was that once again the Fifeshire Feartie bottled it. Instead of standing up denouncing this deal as soon as the brown stuff hit the fan. Thus appearing to our cousins across the pond as being on their side with the SNP as the nasty party.
TrevorsDen
September 4th, 2009 11:29am Report this commentEven with Brown wanting a prisoner exchange dealer it means he was saying one thing to America and another to the Libyans.
Whichever way you cut it he was being duplicitous with our allies (unless Obama was being duplicitous with American voters).
M.R
September 4th, 2009 11:32am Report this commentIt is still highly likely that it was Tony Blair who originally promised a prisoner transfer, after all what is actually known about what took place at his meetings with Col. Gadaffi?
echo34
September 4th, 2009 11:37am Report this commentwhy is it then that Brown will make a statement voicing his diapproval of the SNPs decision?
Surely there would be points to score by doing so?
Paul B
September 4th, 2009 11:46am Report this commentI agree, a very interesting article and one I broadly agree with. Is it any co-incidence that Salmond has just announced that a referendum will take place, with question to be posed will be about Scottish independence?
My own thoughts as an Englishman, is that the decision to release Megrahi was wrong, but whilst understanding American anger, I do feel they have no right to take moral high ground with their refusal, during the troubles,to extradite to the UK any IRA suspect.
Salmond is a clever politician and tactician , he is playing the long game here,and at present he`s winning.
Lastly, why can`t I be granted a referendum on English independence ?
Moraymint
September 4th, 2009 11:49am Report this comment"The zeitgeist is anti-Labour and Gordon Brown is astoundingly incompetent ... He was willing to trade Megrahi, but his plan was blocked. The SNP released the bomber despite pressure from London ... The SNP glories in defying Westminster. It is the party's raison d'etre".
What a terrible indictment of British politics, and testimony to the constitutional mess created by the Labour Party in government.
Throw in the fact that we have a "government" - the "Scottish Government" - free to operate in a way that disassociates responsibility from authority and you have a recipe for one disaster after another.
The "Scottish Government" had the authority to release Megrahi, but had no responsibility for the consequences of that decision, ie international condemnation now being heaped upon the (dis)United Kingdom.
Another Labour Party dog's breakfast; supreme incompetence at every level of government. Oh boy, the sooner we kick out the lot of them, the better.
Ian Bailey
September 4th, 2009 11:52am Report this commentSo come on the conspiracy frothers! Why are none of you on here denouncing this piece? We all KNOW that Brown is at the centre of all things loathsome, therefore this release MUST be down to him.
Thats what you've been saying, and all the time its been utterly laughable for the reasons eloquently put above - Labour and the SNP hate each other's guts.
So come on, lets have it. The alleged conspiracy has been proposed by a series of innuendoes none of which get past this rather basic objection of sanity. Anyone want to propose how (a) Brown got the SNP to do his bidding and (b) keep saying its their decision alone long after the political heat got turned up? No?
Sam
September 4th, 2009 12:05pm Report this commentIs this the same Tim Luckhurst who was a Labour Special Advisor to Donald Dewar?
It would be useful to highlight this context when matters realting to the Scottish Parliament and Government are being discussed by this correspondent.
dm48
September 4th, 2009 12:25pm Report this commentbarnacle bill
I think Brown's problem in denouncing the Scottish Government's decision was due to the reputation he has created for himself.
He has built up this image of "the son of the manse" with his pre-eminent "moral compass".
Once the Church of Scotland, as well as the other Scottish churches, endorsed Kenny MacAskill's decision and his interpretation of compassion, any wish that Brown may have had to take a different view was dashed.
Derek
September 4th, 2009 12:31pm Report this commentThere is one vital lesson to be learned from this exercise in independent foreign policy by Edinburgh, regardless of whomever was pulling the strings, and that is that it is unacceptable to permit Scottish independence. One reason for the Union was to end the separate and often hostile policy of the Scotch government towards England and thereby to prevent an independent Scotch military, with backing from unfriendly powers, moving into northern England and threatening our major cities and even on occasion putting the capital into a fright.
It makes a man weep for his country to see the British government give away our sovereignty to the EU in the name of abandoning nationalism for the good of a greater Union while also abandoning the good of a greater Union by encouraging nationalism in Scotland.
Mike
September 4th, 2009 12:36pm Report this commentThe story here is how extra-Govt individuals (Blair, Mandelson as usual playing both sides, the Corfu set, and BP acting purely commercially) managed for personal ends to bounce HM Government and the Scots. Poor old Brown is still trying to figure out what happened.
nick
September 4th, 2009 12:36pm Report this commentOf course they are looking in the wrong place. They are looking in the wrong place because they are looking for the wrong thing.
There certainly was a desire to get him off to Tripoli to die, in order not to jeapordise deals.
However there was a deal done. Drop the appeal and we will release you. It's been admitted.
That was the deal and you have to look as to the motivation to doing it.
The main one is to hide what was coming out in the appeal. Bribing a witness with 2 million dollars is top of the list, with not telling the defense that you had done so. Planting evidence being another.
That really screws the Scotish legal system. A bit of 'compassion' and odium as a result is mild in comparison, wiht the advantage of some trade deals to boot.
The finacial downside is large too. Think about the compensation deal for the bombing. Ghadafi gets the cash back, with interest, or he nationalises the new oil companies, again. End result, we lose out.
Nick
Occasional Ostrich
September 4th, 2009 12:36pm Report this commentMacchiavelli himself (the real one, not TB or PM or any other supposed behind-the-scenes fixer) couldn't have done better.
pete-s
September 4th, 2009 1:10pm Report this commentOff subject, one phrase from the article did highlight something:
'Labour designed devolution to smash nationalism, and no matter how utterly that tactic has failed'
The only thing Labour has excelled at; is devising plans and strategies that fall around their ears.
T. Holmen
September 4th, 2009 2:52pm Report this commentIan Bailey,
I can accept that the decision to release Megrani on health grounds was taken by the SNP.
However, there is another issue here, which is much more uncomfortable for the Government, and that relates to the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) which was agreed with Libya in 2007. Co-incidentally this is the same year that BP won the largest Exploration and Production contract awarded by Libya.
I suggest that you read the story in the Times by Tom Baldwin about the PTA negotiations, and the involvement of Sir Mark Allen. The PTA would have given a mechanism for Megrani to be transferred to Libya, in due course, which was what Libya was clearly seeking, since they rejected the attempt by Jack Straw to exclude him.
In the event, it was not necessary to use the PTA, because Megrani was diagnosed with cancer, which made him eligible for compassionate release.
The Government keep saying that Megrani was not eligible for transfer under the PTA, but this was simply because his sentence was under appeal. Once the appeal had been resolved, he would then have been eligible for release.
Andy
September 4th, 2009 5:07pm Report this commentThe Scottish Executive may have had the power to release Al-Megrahi on compassionate gounds, but it was unwise to do so and it should have referred the case to London. However as I understand the law it did not have the power, given that he had a home in Scotland, to allow him to leave the country. Border control is still a UK Government power.
wonderfulforhisage
September 4th, 2009 6:46pm Report this commentMy guess is that Lord M. played Bre'r Rabbit to Alex S's Bre'r Fox. Lord M's motive would have been to weaken the 'Special Relationship' and in doing so strengthen the UK's bond with the EU.
Call me a cynical old conspiracy theorist if you like; I am one.
ndm
September 4th, 2009 7:17pm Report this commentThe most likely explanation ...
Other possibilities include ...
But that is conjecture. My conclusion? ...
That is some bunch of cherries.
Jack R
September 5th, 2009 10:36am Report this commentWho really freed Megrahi?:
The supporters of Islam, including Qatar and Scotland -
'Times'
"Qatar raised al-Megrahi release during talks with Alex Salmond."
Angus Macleod, Peter Jones, David Robertson -
"The Scottish government faced demands last night for full details of its relationship with Qatar, after the Gulf state was revealed to have lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
"During trade talks held in June with Qatar’s International Co-operation Minister, Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, was asked to free Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
"The Times has discovered that Mr Salmond first discussed possible trade deals with the Gulf state at least 18 months ago. The First Minister had a previously undisclosed meeting with a senior executive at the Qatar Investment Authority about potential financial support for the Scottish economy in May last year. Mr Salmond and Jim Mather, the Scottish Enterprise Minister, met Dr Hussain Ali al-Abdullah, executive director of the investment authority, which owns almost a third of the J Sainsbury supermarket chain."
Indy
September 5th, 2009 5:31pm Report this commentMegrahi was released because he is dying and compassionate release was the recommendation made by the prison authorities and parole board. Bit less exciting than all the conspiracy theories I grant you.
Incidentally it is not true to say there has been blanket international condemnation. Nelson Mandela, for example, has spoken out in favour of the decision.
Iceman
September 6th, 2009 12:09am Report this commentThe release of Megrahi was in the Scottish hands, maneuvered there by Straw's prisoner exchange deal. Alex Salmond thus faced two options.
He could have let Megrahi die in a Scottish prison, and rejoice in Gadaffi's response - kicking PB out, and plotting against Westminster interests elsewhere. He would have loved to this to Gordon but...
He could not afford the appeal to go ahead. Megrah's conviction would have been very likely judged unsafe, as Nick above points out. Bad for Scotland.
It's a no brainer that he took the decision he did. Had he been able to take the first option MacAskill would have swapped the compassion for Megrahi for one for the victims of the atrocity. He's a politician, you know.
I very much agree that the devolution amounts to a monumental cock-up, the worst consequences of which we are yet to witness. I cannot accept that 'the Americans' are hypocrites fuming about the release with the baggage of past IRA support. This view mixes up the stance of the governing elite with that of the public.
Scallywag
September 6th, 2009 7:02am Report this commentBP needs feedstock. Dress that fact up anyway you like, but BP still needs feedstock. Gadaffi was, and still is, in a position to stop BP in its tracks unless he got his man back. Now he's got what he wanted, BP will get its feedstock, the UK gets its oil and Gadaffi gets even richer and all at the expense of the UK and the USA. Hole in one. Simples!
Dougie Dubh
September 7th, 2009 10:47pm Report this commentA difficult decision, duly arrived at by the Scottish Justice Minister through due diligence and due process. Not the call of Alex Salmond or anyone else.
The presumption of the Scottish Government being 'bought' by either London, Washington or Tripoli might be convenient to some, but is as ignorant as it is offensive - almost as much so as the notion that democratic devolution should never have been 'gifted' to Scotland because it represents an inconvenience to the best interests of London - exactly the despicable reasoning that lies behind the blocking of an independence referendum, whether of not the anti-democrats choose to admit it.
Journalists and commentators evidently struggle to get past the fact that small democracies, Scotland included, are not simply there to be the pawns or servants of 'powers' like Washington or London, and that a trust ought rightly to exist between the people and their elected representatives to do the right and accountable thing by their own electorate - as distinct from underhand expediency, or the will of international bullies.
However partisan the motive, I think Luckhurst gets closer to the truth here than most.
It's not so much the release of Megrahi that stinks, as the exploitation of it by the media to sell copy, and the petty partisan point-scorers as a cheap political football.
One more point. It's the 'Scottish Government' in administration now, Tim. The 'Executive' lost the 2007 election.
You'd think a Professor of Journalism might know that?
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