Terrorism

There’s still plenty, I’m afraid, that needs to be said about the decision to send the Lockerie bomber back to Libya. But, since many people think that there was a determination, come what may and regardless of circumstances, to free him let’s begin by asking how matters might have unfolded if Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi had not contracted terminal prostate cancer. Would he now be in Scotland or in Libya? Granted, this is a hypothetical but it may not be unreasonable to hazard that it might have gone like this: 1. The UK government and Libya would still have negotiated a Prisoner Transfer Agreement. 2. The Scottish government would still have

Roddy Forsyth deserves our congratulations for revealing this: One of the unforeseen consequences of Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi’s incarceration in Greenock Prison was that, by his own account, in whiling away the hours by watching live football on the now-defunct Setanta network he became a Rangers supporter. No surprise that a man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history would forsake his local team – Morton – to support one of the Gruesome Twosome*. He and Rangers deserve one another. This, mind you, could run and run. Just as Celtic and Rangers supporters have co-opted other conflicts for their own ends (Huns** Rangers waving Israeli flags; Tims** Celtic sporting

So, I’ve got this correct, the initial reaction to Kenny MacAskill’s decision to free the Lockerbie bobmber was that this demonstrated nothing but the SNP’s provincialism. Small-toon politicians desperate to make a mark on the international stage and all that. Now we’re told that it was all just about grubby, if lucrative commercial interests and that London was quite happy to see al-Megrahi repatriated, whether on compassionate grounds or as a consequence of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement agreed with Libya. It’s possible that both of these theories to be partially true. However, if the Westminster government really did want to see Megrahi sent home to Libya, it’s quite possible that

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

Back when I worked at Scotland on Sunday I was never the Lockerbie Guy. Nor was I even the Lockerbie Guy’s Assistant. For years every paper needed a Lockerbie specialist, not least because having one ensured that the rest of us didn’t have to follow the tortuously complicated story any more closely than the readers. Which is to say, I don’t know the extent of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s involvement, though clearly even if he was involved he wasn’t the fellow who ordered or thought of the mission. Still, the speculation that he might be released on compassionate grounds – he has been diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer – has provoked