The death of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted for their part in the Lockerbie Bombing, is a matter of some relief. It marks the end of one part of an affair from which few of the protagonists graduate with credit. As this is Lockerbie, however, you can expect the conspiracy fires to burn for some time yet.
As far as Megrahi’s release is concerned I continue to believe cock-up rather more probable than conspiracy. Alex Salmond was stretching his case to breaking point yesterday when he pointed out that Megrahi had at least died of the prostate cancer with which he had been diagnosed. See, he really was ill! Aye, well, nevertheless had it been supposed Megrahi could endure for another three years he would not have been released at all.
Plainly, knowing what we now know about Megrahi’s thrawn life-expectancy it was a mistake to release him on the compassionate grounds he had perhaps only three months to live. But we did not know the old bomber had so much life in him back then. So when David Cameron says it was a mistake to release Megrahi does this mean he opposes the compassionate release of any terminally-ill prisoner or only those that are high-profile or whose release is liable to prove unpopular? And how, pray, will that judgement be made?
Again, let us ask a simple question: where would Megrahi be now if he had not contracted cancer? I suspect the answer is the same as it always was: in a Scottish prison cell. And, I fancy, he would have stayed there even though the UK and Libya had signed a Prisoner Transfer Agreement as part of the “normalisation” of relations between the countries. Why? Because the Libyans were sold a pup. London could no more guarantee that Megrahi could be transferred from Scotland to a Libyan gaol than it can put a man on the moon.
Was there a “Deal in the Desert” between the Labour government and the Libyans? I dare say there was. But ensuring Megrahi was covered by the terms of the PTA is not the same as ensuring he could or even would be transferred to Libya. True, London could have exerted some pressure in a clumsy attempt to persuade the Scots to send Megrahi home to Libya but I find it hard – impossible, actually – to imagine a ministry led by Alex Salmond buckling before such pressure or, just as pertinently, remaining entirely silent about the matter.
Here too, however, the picture is complicated by the fact it is possible to make a case arguing that Edinburgh extracted a few trinkets from London in return for accepting (quietly) that Megrahi would not be exempted from the terms of the PTA signed with Libya. Yet again, however, signing a PTA does not guarantee that any given prisoner will be transferred from one country to another. That remains a distinct decision. (Remember too that any use of the PTA would also have required the Crown to drop its appeal against what it deemed the leniency of Megrahi’s sentence.)
Nevertheless, Megrahi’s cancer proved unusually convenient. I don’t know if there was some kind of “understanding” that his prospects for release on compassionate grounds would be boosted if he dropped his appeal against his conviction. I do suspect that it was useful for all parties that his appeal was dropped.
Despite what the Prime Minister says, Megrahi’s guilt is not certain. As Ian Smart suggests there is little consensus even amongst those best informed about the case. This was not a “slam-dunk” case. Far from it. The evidence for guilt or innocence is a close-run thing whichever side of the argument you choose to take. Moreoever, it is possible to be convinced the Libyans were responsible for Lockerbie while also suspecting that the evidence against them was only barely strong enough to secure a conviction. Indeed the layman might reasonably conclude that if ever a case made an argument for the Not Proven verdict, Lockerbie is that case. (The various appeals, remember, are a test of the evidence against Megrahi not of his actual guilt.)
Even so, one should not assume that the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission’s report would have led to Megrahi’s conviction being overturned. This too makes Megrahi’s cancer as unfortunate as it may have been darkly convenient. Though Lockerbie is still, as the First Minister pointed out yesterday, a live case the prospects of getting a fully persuasive resolution to the bombing of Pan-Am 103 seem pretty bleak.
That Megrahi outperformed his prognosis so spectacularly may be embarrassing but it does not mean the decision was made, when it was made, in bad faith. That it turned out to be a blunder does not mean it was made in an unworthy fashion. Or, to put it another way, would those opposed to his release have maintained their opposition had Megrahi perished three weeks, rather than three years, after his release? Perhaps they would. But the facts of the case would, in all but one (albeit significant) detail have remained the same.
Megrahi was no ingenue but, even if he was a part of the bomb-plot few people, I think, believe he was its instigator. He may have been a little more than the bagman but if he was the bagman then he was also, in some respects, a symbolic prisoner – a fact that strengthened the argument for his release on compassionate grounds.
Amidst all the talk about how we should remember Lockerbie’s victims today so we might also ponder the fact that those primarily responsible for the atrocity – in whichever country they may be – have not yet been held to account for their actions. Megrahi’s death does nothing to change that now just as it would not have done so had he died in Greenock or within days of his return to his homeland.
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