Pan Am Lockerbie "Bomber" Released

[notyoueither]

You're assuming it was a bad conviction before the conviction has been proven to be bad.

I assume a conviction is valid until proven otherwise. It's the only way a criminal justice system can function.

I don't. Not after a parade of convictions for capital crimes being overturned as bad after official misconduct is brought to light.

Keep in mind it takes years for them to be overturned.

I am not a judge. I do not have to wait for the wheels to turn. I can form my own opinion based on information in hand.

I have zero problem with this man being let free and going home to die, even if the minister in Scotland weasled out in his statement.

[SlowwHand]

Life is life. If you don't mean life, don't call it life. You can call it, until we feel sorry for you.

[notyoueither]

Dude, the issue is bad convictions.

Or are you saying that someone should stay in prison despite appeals and being exhonerated?

After all, he has been sentenced to life. Can't let a perfectly good sentence be wasted.

Perhaps stand-ins could be hired?

[SlowwHand]

I wasn't aware that he was exhonerated. Can you show me a cite? I really didn't know.

[notyoueither]

That's the point. He'll be dead before that can be done.

It would have been far better if the minister could have maned up and given the real reason this man was released. He is dying and the evidence used to convict him is beginning to stink up the joint.

Rather than that, he chose to dodge behind compassion. Hah!

When I first heard of this I wondered to myself if there would have been any compassion had it been a bus in Scotland blown to bits. I doubted it.

However, if the conviction stinks, the man is dying, and the case is likely to be tossed on appeal, I would expect nothing less than the dying man be released on ministerial discretion just as he should be if this were a state of the Union and the governor was faced with a similar set of facts.

[SlowwHand]

Let the investigation continue then. Soothe his family, if it turns out as you say.

[notyoueither]

Soothing the family does nothing for the dead.

The right thing to do was release him. The only thing I am sorry for is the sad sack of a minister in Scotland who dodged the issue.

[molly bloom]

@ che as well

Che is not the only one to doubt the Libyan's guilt- so do British Lockerbie victims' families:

Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the attack, and who has campaigned for Megrahi's release, was disappointed at the development.

He said: "The Obama administration has inherited a situation where an innocent man has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit and is on the verge of dying in a Scottish jail. That they should take this attitude reflects an ongoing determination by the US to ensure that this travesty of justice continues and I think it is very sad."

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Clinton-tells-MacAskill-to-keep.5557081.jp

Let us recall the case of the Syrian would-be bomber, Nezar Hindawi:

1986: UK cuts links with Syria over bomb plot
The UK government has broken off diplomatic relations with Syria following revelations of official complicity in Nezar Hindawi's plot to blow up an El Al airliner.
Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe said in a statement there was "conclusive evidence" of Syrian official involvement with Mr Hindawi.

It is understood the bomb Mr Hindawi planned to use was constructed at the Syrian Embassy in London and that Mr Hindawi held a Syrian passport normally reserved for government officials.

The Syrian ambassador, Dr Loutof Haydar, said the decision to expel him was "nonsense".

The decision came just hours after Mr Hindawi was sentenced to 45 years in jail for plotting to blow up the Israeli airliner flight to Tel Aviv.

Mr Hindawi attempted to blow up the flight by planting a timer bomb inside his girlfriend's hand luggage. Ann Murphy had been under the impression that he would follow her on a later flight.

The explosives were only discovered when a security official searched the bag thinking it was too heavy. The 3lb of plastic explosives and a detonator concealed in a pocket calculator had made it through two X-ray machines undetected.

When the bomb was discovered Mr Hindawi went to the Syrian embassy in London where he was told he had done 'good things', taken to a safe house and given a disguise. He was caught when he left the safe house to go to a hotel.

The judge, Mr Justice Mars-Jones said: "This was a well planned, well organised crime which involved many others besides yourself, some of them people in high places."

"If your attempt had succeeded and that bomb had gone off then some 380 innocent civilians, men, women and children would have perished, including the woman you professed to love and who was carrying your child".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/24/newsid_2478000/2478505.stm

Syria had the experience in the bombing attempts and the necessary infrastructure. Syria was also Iran's ally, in Lebanon and against Iraq.

Iran had the desire for revenge: the U.S. had brought down a civilian Iranian airliner with great loss of life.


Syria was also a Soviet protege- but Libya was out in the cold as regards superpower alliances.

Now for some good old fashioned hypocrisy:

“My colleagues and I in Miami conducted exhaustive investigations of Bosch,” the FBI agent George Davis had written in a memo to Secretary of State George Shultz.

“He was regarded by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies as Miami’s number one terrorist.”

The attorney general’s office recommended that he be immediately deported. “The October 6, 1976, Cuban airline bombing was a CORU operation under the direction of Bosch,” Joe Whitley, the associate attorney general, wrote in his decision recommending Bosch’s deportation. “CORU is the name of Bosch’s terrorist outfit.”

While the Justice Department reviewed the case, bomb threats were made against the Miami INS office, which classified Bosch as an “excludable alien.”

Now electoral politics would come into play. In 1989, securing Bosch’s release was one of the cornerstones of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s congressional campaign in Miami. She praised Bosch as a hero and a patriot on exile radio stations and raised $265,000 for his legal defense fund. Her campaign manager was a political neophyte, but one who had the ear of the White House. His name was Jeb Bush.

On August 17, 1989, Jeb Bush attended a meeting he had arranged for Ros-Lehtinen with his father to discuss the matter. The following July, President Bush rejected his own Justice Department’s recommendation and authorized Bosch’s release. Not long after that, Bosch announced that he was ready to “rejoin the struggle” and called the agreement he had signed forswearing violence “a farce.” Two years later, the Bush administration granted Bosch U.S. residency.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200611/cuba/5

You say terrorist, I say freedom fighter. You know, like the Founding Fathers...*



* The Contras were, according to Ronald Reagan, "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers."

Contra acts included executing captives (including non-combatants) and mutilating corpses. Can't remember Jefferson, Franklin or Washington pursuing those methods...

[molly bloom]

[QUOTE=notyoueither;5665356]

When I first heard of this I wondered to myself if there would have been any compassion had it been a bus in Scotland blown to bits. I doubted it.

QUOTE]


Lockerbie is in Scotland. Lockerbie was populated with Scottish people when the aeroplane debris and burning fuel dropped on it.

There were also British citizens on board the Lockerbie jet- an old classmate of mine was on board.

[Asher]

molly is right. This crash did damage their countryside slightly, so they have suffered a great deal.

Thanks molly for your perspective.

[molly bloom]

molly is right. This crash did damage their countryside slightly, so they have suffered a great deal.

Thanks molly for your perspective.

I'd say that was a new low for you as regards cretinous comments, but then I haven't read everything you've recently written, so there may be something out there even more vacuous and ill-considered.

11 residents of the town of Lockerbie lost their lives

further:

The passengers and crew were made up of people of 22 nationalities from all corners of the world.

and :

Extensive damage was caused to property in Lockerbie and debris from the aircraft was spread over some 845 square miles between Lockerbie and the North Sea.

finally:

"When the plane hit, it was the most horrendous explosion. The streets, lawns and houses were on fire and it was difficult to move without my shoes and trousers burning. Then I found the cockpit. It was like the jet's nose had just been chopped off."

Michael Gordon, a former police officer in Lockerbie.

http://www.dumfriesandgalloway.police.uk/news/highProfile/lockerbie.htm

[Ecofarm]

THE Lockerbie bomber was at the centre of a fresh row last night after it emerged he is taking a cancer-busting drug that could keep him alive for FIVE more years.

Terminally ill Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was prescribed chemotherapy treatment Taxotere after returning to Libya.

But yesterday reports claimed Megrahi wasn't given the drug while he was in Greenock prison - amid claims he could have been kept behind bars if he had taken the medication.

Last night Tory justice spokesman Bill Aitken demanded answers from Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

He said: "Was the existence of a drug which is reportedly now extending the life of the Lockerbie bomber included in any of the reports Kenny MacAskill read before making the decision to release him?

"Alex Salmond's government is still refusing to publish the independent advice upon which they based their decision."

Megrahi - sentenced to life for the 1988 jet bombing that killed 270 people - was freed on compassionate grounds seven months ago and returned home to Libya.

Yesterday it emerged the prostate cancer sufferer's condition has now stabilised.

A source close to the 57-year-old said: "After his treatments, he can be unwell for two or three days but then enjoys a period when he's quite well."

http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2892333/Terminally-ill-Lockerbie-bomber-could-live-for-another-five-years.html

That's a tabloid, right? But still funny.

[Wezil]

Just great.

[Pekka]

Hey, I have brain cancer, maybe I can get a discount from a speeding ticket? Oh crap, just remembered they barred me from driving. And drinkign alcohol, no DUI for me (unless drugs). ****! They are racists.

Then again, in this bomber case, I don't care so much. He is in his last days. My anger does not reach to that place, nor was it so big to reach Scotland and the victims to begin with, even though it certainly was sad and an outrage.

[chequita guevara]

Plus, he didn't do it.