Scotland shows it’s corrupt side.

I can sort of understand why a guy named ‘Mcaskill’ might have sympathy for a man with prostate cancer, but I really doubt that explains this travesty of justice. Avoid buying anything Scottish for the foreseeable future.

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From FOX News:

August 20: Libyans surround the convoy of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, as he returns home to Tripoli, Libya.

The man responsible for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing returned home to Libya on Thursday to cheering crowds, and throngs of people waving posters of the convicted killer, who flew to his native country to die after Scotland released him from prison.

Scotland’s decision to free Abdel Baset al-Megrahi outraged some relatives of the 270 people killed when the jetliner blew up over a Scottish town.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, 57, spent roughly 11 days behind bars for each victim in the bombing. President Barack Obama said the decision to free the terminally ill bomber on compassionate grounds was a mistake and warned Libya not to give him a hero’s welcome.

But thousands were on hand to greet him warmly when his plane from Scotland touched down at a military airport in Tripoli. There was a festive atmosphere with some wearing t-shirts with al-Megrahi’s picture. Others waved Libyan and Scottish flags while Libyan songs blared.

The White House declared it “deeply” regretted the Scottish decision as Abdel Baset al-Megrahi left prison and flew to Libya on an Airbus dispatched to Glasgow Airport.

Scotland’s justice secretary said freeing the bomber was an expression of the Scottish people’s humanity but U.S. family members of Lockerbie victims expressed outrage.

“I think it’s appalling, disgusting and so sickening I can hardly find words to describe it,” said Susan Cohen of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, whose 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, died in the attack. “This isn’t about compassionate release. This is part of give-al-Qaddafi -what-he-wants-so-we-can-have-the-oil.”

Some men outside the prison made obscene gestures as al-Megrahi’s prison van drove by toward the airport.

Al-Megrahi, who had served only eight years of his life sentence, was recently given only months to live after being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said although al-Megrahi had not shown compassion to his victims — many of whom were American college students flying home to New York for Christmas — MacAskill was motivated by Scottish values to show mercy.

“Some hurts can never heal, some scars can never fade,” MacAskill said. “Those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive … However, Mr. al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power.”

Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of taking part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988. He was sentenced to life in prison. The airliner exploded over Scotland and all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground died when it crashed into the town of Lockerbie.

The former Libyan intelligence officer was sentenced to serve a minimum of 27 years in a Scottish prison for Britain’s deadliest terrorist attack. But a 2007 review of his case found grounds for an appeal of his conviction, and many in Britain believe he is innocent.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday the United States disagreed with the decision to free al-Megrahi.

“We continue to believe that Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland,” Gibbs said. “On this day, we extend our deepest sympathies to the families who live every day with the loss of their loved ones.”

“I don’t understand how the Scots can show compassion. It’s an utter insult and utterly disgusting,” said Kara Weipz, of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, whose 20-year-old brother Richard Monetti was on board Pan Am Flight 103. “It’s horrible. I don’t show compassion for someone who showed no remorse.”

MacAskill said he stood by al-Megrahi’s conviction and the sentence for “the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed on U.K. soil.”

He said he ruled out sending the bomber back to Libya under a prisoner-transfer agreement, saying the U.S. victims had been given assurances that al-Megrahi would serve out his sentence in Scotland. But he said that as a prisoner given less than three months to live by doctors, al-Megrahi was eligible for compassionate release.

Later Thursday, MacAskill released a letter from al-Megrahi, appealing for mercy.

“I am a family man: first and foremost I am a son, husband, father and grandfather,” al-Megrahi wrote. “I have been separated from my family as a result of what I consider and unjust conviction. I have tried to bear that with a degree of equanimity and dignity.”

Compassionate release is an established feature of the British judicial system when a prisoner is near death. According to officials, there have been 30 requests for release on compassionate grounds in Scotland over the last decade, 23 of which were approved.

Al-Megrahi’s return will be a landmark event in Libya and a cause for celebration. His countrymen see him as an innocent victim scapegoated by the West in a campaign to turn their country into an international pariah. Many will also view his release as a moral victory for their country.

Yet it was not immediately clear exactly how al-Megrahi would be received Thursday night. He could be taken to meet Libyan leader Muammar Al-Qaddafi or appear at an annual rally held every year on Aug. 20 for Libyans to hear a progress report from al-Qaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi , on projects he is working on.

However, al-Megrahi may also go directly to a hospital if he needs immediate medical care.

Qaddafi engineered a rapprochement with his former critics following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He renounced terrorism, dismantled Libya’s secret nuclear program, accepted his government’s responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims’ families.

Western energy companies — including Britain’s BP PLC — have moved into Libya in an effort to tap the country’s vast oil and gas wealth.

Qaddafi lobbied hard for the return of al-Megrahi, an issue that took on added urgency when al-Megrahi was diagnosed with cancer last year.

Freeing al-Megrahi divided the Lockerbie victims’ families, with many in Britain in favor and many in the U.S. adamantly opposed.

Al-Megrahi had been a known figure in the Scottish community near his prison, receiving regular treatment at the hospital. He was visited often by his wife and children, who lived in Scotland for several years.

Briton Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died on Flight 103, welcomed the Libyan’s release, saying many questions remained about what led to the bomb that exploded in the cargo hold.

“I think he should be able to go straight home to his family and spend his last days there,” Swire told the BBC. “I don’t believe for a moment this man was involved in the way he was found to be involved.”

Among the Lockerbie victims was John Mulroy, the AP’s director of international communication, who died along with five members of his family.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More from NPR:

One thing is for sure, the crowd who welcomed him in Libya did not gather to celebrate the return of an innocent man, but of one who wounded the west deeply. It is conceivable that this man is not guilty, but his fans most certainly are.

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About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

14 Replies to “Scotland shows it’s corrupt side.”

  1. I actually saw the entire pathetic statement made by Scotland’s “Justice” Secretary on al-CNN, an endless and tiring stream of mumbo-jumbo which he could easily have replaced with a brief “I love mahoundian terrorists, and therefore it’s with great joy that I’m awarding this dirtbag the opportunity to go back to Libya and receive a hero’s welcome from his fellow inbred bedouin savage mahoundians. And just in time for Ramadan 2009 (or 1430, as your average dune-dweller would rather refer to the present year), mind you!!!”

    That would at least have done away with his hypocrisy.

  2. No shortage of that in the west. The arrest of the Christian for preaching the bible in the UK while Chaudery converts 11 year old’s with impunity is another potent sign of sharia being imposed on us all by another name. For the moment.

  3. Here’s an interesting, truthful and brilliant comment on the article published by the dhimmi paper The Economist on this outrage:

    Assuming he was incarcerated in 2001, he has imprisoned 8 years for killing 210 people. So his jail term has totaled FOURTEEN DAYS PER PERSON KILLED.

    The European justice system is just as comical as the US healthcare system.

    Hint… U wanna commit murder, head to Europe on vacation (who knows, you may be freed before your vacation is up.)

    And, just for the sake of how Europeans add insult to injury in the way they handle crooks who are behind bars, let’s not forget what a hell of a lot European prison cells are like (a lot better, cleaner and offering more appliances than any room at your average Econolodge or Motel 6.)

  4. I actually saw McAskill’s statement on Sky News, and if you’d care to deal with what he actually said, instead of making your own stuff up (Proud Kafir) what he said was that the Scottish legal system allows mercy to be shown to someone who is terminally ill (which is the case here.)

    The Scots are not barbarians like the Americans, who last year killed more prisoners than Libya did, and who lag behind only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea when it comes to murdering its own citizens (erring on the side of life?).

    We have our own values, and although the prisoner in question showed no concern for others, that’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t mean that we have to abandon our values.

    The guy hasn’t been able to live his life. We’ve taken that from him. And now it’s coming to an end.

    Cancer will kill him. We don’t do that.

    By the way, any mouthy Yanks: how’s the whole death penalty thing working out for you? Society any safer, is it? Works, does it?

    Thought not.

  5. IMO justice and compassion shouldn’t mix. Have compassion on him all you want but he still has to serve out his sentence because IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

  6. Justice and compassion are the same thing. The problem is, Mcaskill is using the term ‘compassion’ in order to sell weakness. Compassion would be allowing some peace to the victims of this monster. Compassion would be administering justice and keeping victim and terrorist straight.

  7. @ Eeyore

    Agreed. What I mean is justice shouldn’t be subject to the whims of somebody else’s compassionate feelings. So McCaskill feels sorry for the guy (or so he says), that’s not a good enough reason to let him go. The only people who have the right to release al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds are the families of the victims.

  8. I guess Niccolo needs to learn to read between the lines. I haven’t made anything up, and what dirtbag McCaskill said meant exactly what I wrote he stated, even if he used different words. I saw the whole damn thing too on al-CNN, let me sai it again, and it was a travesty of justice. As for compassionate release, that was invoked for no reason other than more mahoundian appeasement from the dhimmi UK.

    Massive numbers of Westerners not seeing things for what they are is what allows such mahoundian scum to take full advantage of MC and PC to keep the pace of their seemingly unstoppable islamization agenda. Just as when a German judge cited Mein Qurampf as a reason to deny a woman’s request for divorce from her abusive mahoundian husband, stating that it (not he) had the right to beat up its (not his) wife, as though such MC PC niceties should ever have been allowed to let the spawn of inferior cultures living like parasites in the West to get away with committing crimes, in blatant violation of our laws.

    Now, back to McCaskill’s shameful act, as commentators who have common sense have repeated ad nauseam in the wake of that sick joke, letting the scumbag terrorist go to Libya to “spend his last days in the company of its (not his) loved ones” was something that it (not him) didn’t give those who were victims of its actions. Besides, there is a whole lot more about this story that makes the Scottish “justice” system’s compassionate-release crap look just like a lame excuse for what was nothing more than plain and shameless appeasement.

    —————–

    So McCaskill feels sorry for the guy (or so he says), that’s not a good enough reason to let him go.

    McCaskill could have gone and visited it in its cell every day and given it some candy until it finally kicked the bucket.

  9. I guess Niccolo needs to learn to read between the lines. I haven’t made anything up, and what dirtbag McCaskill said meant exactly what I wrote he stated, even if he used different words. – pk

    So you “used different words” but at the same time you “haven’t made anything up.”

    I rest my case.

    Going back to more important matters than your ignorant little rant: This is the law of the land, which wasn’t invented last week just so this particular prisoner could go home. It applies to everyone in our country, all the time. Other people have been released under this law, and I didn’t hear you all bleating about it then.

    The guy in question wasn’t just released one fine morning. Remember, he has cancer. If he didn’t, then he wouldn’t have been released.

    So call it karma, call it a higher power, but he got what he deserved. Because anyone who’s seen someone with late stage cancer knows it’s worse than a death sentence. It’s a tough way to go out.

    And talking of Scotland, go ahead and read this.

  10. I know the law wasn’t invented to let a terrorist scumbag be released without having paid for his crimes. It’s you Niccolo who refuse to get your head out of the sand and see the obvious… The UK wants to make nice with Qaddafi, the UK wants to “improve its image” among mahoundians (as though there could be any way it cold truly achieve that without imposing sharia on its entire territory and surrendering political power to a caliph or a sultan), and the release of the Lockerbie bomber is just one more in a series of suicidal acts of surrender.

    And, as a little additional side note, if the air of the deserts of North Africa, combined with a mahound-prescribed daily dose of camel urine, “miraculously” helps significantly extend Abdel Baset al-Megrahi’s worthless life, will you still keep your head in the Arabian sand? Just asking…

  11. And, one more thing about “the law” and compassionate release… Even if the law allows for that, it doesn’t mean every fucking crook, especially a mass-murderer, should benefit from it. Just as the fact that while life sentences with the possibility of parole are allowed by law in the US, not every convitct-for-life should be paroled.

  12. Well as a Scot I am proud to show some compassion here.

    I prefer the new testament ” turn the other cheek” to the old Testament ” an eye for an eye” I think Scotland is a mainly christian country and I am sure Christ would have had the compassion to release this man.

    There is no doubt he has advanced cancer and will be dead in a few months.

    Its one of the differences between our countries – we believe in mercy, kindness and compassion and our penal code allows for this.

    This is by no means a unique case. There have been 30 applications for compassionate release in the last ten years – 23 granted including a child killer.

    The release of this man shows that we are above pvengeance and petty politics but will do what we believe and know to be right.

    From CBS : But, as CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen notes, al Megrahi “was in a Scottish prison subject to Scottish law and that means that Scotland gets to make the final call. Remember, many Europeans don’t care for the way the U.S. dispenses justice, especially when it comes to capital cases. So this is a situation where the tables are turned.”

    How very true. We think your use of capital punishmnent is wrong, we think that 3 strikes and you are out is wrong. we believe in rehabilitation and redemption – not just vengeance.

    Read the full transcript of MacAskills statement – it makes for good thought provoking reading.

  13. Proud Kafir – its Scots law not Uk or British law. Your ignorance is astounding. Nothing to do with any UK polititian – just the Scots Justice minister on his own.

  14. Proud Scot: Here is a Stratfor analysis of the event. Let me be so bold as to summarize for you in advance. This was, as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the US has already made clear, a political move and the ‘compassionate release is a rouse. This isn’t fishing and this man was a significant terrorist not a mugger or minor pervert.

    Sorry to say, so long as Scotland, Switzerland, the UK etc. decide to avoid the hastles of Russian energy, they will have to deal with the likes of Libya.
    From Stratfor.Com:

    The European-Libyan Game

    IN A SPECIAL SESSION OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT on Monday, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill repeated his explanation for why his government decided to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of terrorism charges in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988 caused the deaths of 270 people. Al-Megrahi, whose release from prison on Aug. 20 for “humanitarian reasons” (doctors give him only three months to live due to prostate cancer) has sparked outrage in both the United Kingdom and the United States, where some have even called for a boycott of Scottish products. U.S. President Barack Obama and FBI Director Robert Mueller also spoke out against the release.

    The public outrage and consternation in the United States and United Kingdom mirror the uproar in Switzerland, where President Hans-Rudolf Merz’s apology to Libya — offered on the same day as al-Megrahi’s release — continues to be the top story in the usually placid and uncontroversial Alpine state. Merz traveled to Tripoli last week to apologize in person for the arrest in July 2008 of Hannibal Gadhafi — the son of Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi — and his pregnant wife by Geneva police, who claimed that the two were abusing their servants in a Geneva luxury hotel (and even threatening to throw one of the maids out of a window). The incident last year led the Libyan leader to cut off oil exports to Switzerland (shipments that account for 20 percent of total Swiss oil use), and to keep two Swiss engineers essentially “hostage” in Libya, refusing to allow them to leave the country.
    In the United Kingdom, rumors are rampant that Business Secretary Peter Mandelson negotiated al-Megrahi’s release in return for lucrative energy deals for BP in Libya. The Swiss, meanwhile, are accusing Merz of bowing under pressure relate to Libyan energy exports and Gadhafi’s decision to pull $5 billion out of Swiss bank accounts. The people in both the United Kingdom and Switzerland are outraged that their governments appear to be kowtowing to the Libyan dictator. However, the public might be missing the deeper, geostrategic reasons behind the U.K. and Swiss governments’ growing tolerance for Libya.

    At the heart of this week’s collective outrage is the simple fact that Europe’s efforts to diversification away from Russian energy are leading the continent right into the outstretched arms of leaders like Gadhafi. Since the Ukrainian gas crises in the winters of 2005-2006 and 2009, Europe’s main goal has been to find energy sources other than Moscow, which uses its natural gas exports to achieve geopolitical goals.

    However, the energy alternatives to Russia are to be found in the Middle East and North Africa — namely, countries such as Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt and Libya. Iran has huge potential for energy exports, particularly natural gas, but developing the massive infrastructure that would be needed to ship the gas through pipelines via Turkey would first require a substantive political evolution in Tehran. Even at that point, it is not clear whether Iran would refrain from attempts to parlay its position as a major energy supplier to Europe for geopolitical concessions in the region. Internally, Iraq is a mess in terms of both politics and security. Algeria, while politically coherent, has been dealing with a low-level insurgency for decades. Egypt is among the more stable Middle Eastern countries, but its energy reserves are so limited that there is not much time before it becomes an energy importer.

    Then there’s Libya. The political enigma that is the Gadhafi regime frequently links political relations directly to investment relations. The government, obsessed with security, runs a tight ship, but the unpredictability built into the system is more than enough to induce caution among energy firms. As the Hannibal drama with the Swiss and the Lockerbie bomber’s release demonstrate, the Europeans will have to tolerate Gadhafi’s mood swings if they expect the energy to keep flowing.

    Europe’s conscious decision to reduce its energy dependence on Russia will improve its ability to stand up to geopolitical challenges from Moscow — particularly in Ukraine, the Baltics and the Caucasus. But this additional room to maneuver comes at a price. The Europeans will have to swallow their pride in dealing with an unpredictable regime like Libya. Indeed, much of the public outrage in the United Kingdom and Switzerland can be viewed as the collective angst of two powerful European countries that find themselves having to stroke the ego of a North African country more often associated with impoverished illegal immigrants heading for Europe’s shores than with holding Europe’s political elite hostage. Still, if Europe wants to loosen Russia’s energy grip, it will have to get used to indignation.