SCOTTISH First Minister Alex Salmond is unmoved by the increasing furore over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
Speaking during a trade mission to Norway before the first anniversary today of the freeing of Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, Mr Salmond said Scotland had been right to let Megrahi go.
“I’d rather be First Minister of a society with too much compassion than be First Minister of a country with too little compassion,” he said.
Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was freed by Mr Salmond’s administration after it was given medical advice that three months’ life expectancy was “a reasonable estimate”.
He had served only eight years of a 27-year sentence for his part in the atrocity, which brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town in 1988. He is still alive in Tripoli, a year after he was allowed to return home. Outraged US relatives of the 270 victims condemned the Scottish decision and US senators set up an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Megrahi’s release.
A number of medical experts have cast doubt on the three-month prognosis. Mr Salmond said his government clearly stated, in announcing its decision to release Megrahi, that the three-month prognosis was only an estimate and that the bomber might live a shorter or longer time.
It emerged this week that Megrahi was not given chemotherapy treatment before being released, despite medical opinion now saying it can extend the life of a prostate cancer sufferer by up to 18 months. Mr Salmond said the Scottish government would not seek the return of Megrahi to prison in Scotland.
He said he had responded to a letter from four Democratic US senators asking that Megrahi’s full medical records be disclosed. “We’ve made the point that the Scottish government . . . is not answerable to the United States Senate,” he said. “But we’ve tried to co-operate to answer all of the questions.”
On December 21, 1988, Sherwood Crescent in Lockerbie was nearly wiped out when the wings of the jumbo jet fell from the sky and burst into a fireball. Sherwood Crescent was rebuilt and is now, again, a quiet street of modest brick homes where lilies and roses bloom on the spot where 11 of the street’s residents died.
One resident said Megrahi should have ended his life behind bars in Scotland. “He should have died here and his body should have been flown back after – there’s a lot of people whose loved ones aren’t coming back,” he said. Patrick Keegans was the town’s priest at the time of the bombing and lived in the only house on Sherwood Crescent not gutted by the fireball.
He said there was “severe doubt” about the safety of Megrahi’s conviction in 2001 by Scottish judges in a special court in The Netherlands.
Be the first to comment