CNN: Victims' family members and advocates are grieving anew as the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland -- which killed 270 people -- was released Thursday from a British prison.
"I feel sick. I feel depressed and outraged. I mean, I am just heartbroken," said Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora, a 20-year-old Syracuse University music student, was killed in the bombing.
Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, sick with advanced prostate cancer, was released on compassionate grounds and sent home to Libya to die, Scottish authorities said. Megrahi, who prosecutors said was a Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted in 2001 of placing a bomb on the Boeing 747.
Libya has formally accepted responsibility for the bombing and has compensated the families, although longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi denied any culpability in the attack.
Cohen and others said international politics had trumped justice as U.S. and British relations with Gadhafi have thawed over the years.
"I feared they would do this," she said. "Now that they've made friends with Gadhafi ... the Western countries want to give him everything that he wants, appease him. He wanted Megrahi, they are rushing Megrahi out; they aren't even giving this a day. And the tiny little shred of justice we had is gone."
"I thought that our governments, both the U.S. and the U.K., owed it to the victims and their families to ensure that Megrahi would fulfill his sentence," said Victoria Cummock, whose husband, John, died in the attack. "If he did the crime, he should do the time. ... (But) when you try to combine politics with justice, politics always wins."
"I expected this," said Mark Zaid, a Washington-based lawyer for several victims' families. "I work with governments all the time, and governments do not act to protect the interests of the people, they act to protect the interests of the country. And those are different."
Zaid said he might file a lawsuit under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to learn what the governments promised each other to accomplish Megrahi's release.
It especially galls the families that Megrahi's release was on compassionate grounds.
"This is mercy?" Cohen said. "Do you know what I've been living with for over 20 years now? This man deserves no compassion. He is a convicted mass murderer and terrorist. What have we come to, that this man is released?"
Added Cummock: "I think it's unconscionable that he would have the audacity to apply on compassionate grounds to be released and that they would actually consider it. Nevertheless, not only did they consider it, they granted it. "I think it's a huge disservice, not only to the families but also for the people of Lockerbie >>> Jim Kavanagh | Thursday, August 20, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: The decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was taken with all due consideration and compassion. But it is the wrong decision all the same
There is no question at all about Mr MacAskill’s legitimacy in making this decision. There are anomalies about the constitutional settlement between the nations of the British Union but no doubt that the relevant authority is that of Mr MacAskill. As he said at great length in his statement, Mr MacAskill followed due process meticulously. In a long list of parties and guidelines consulted he namechecked the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA), the Scottish Prison Service guidance on compassionate release, the families of victims, a woman from Spain whose sister was a member of the cabin crew, Hillary Clinton, the US Attorney-General, Eric Holder, Abdul Ati al-Obidi and his delegation from the Libyan Government, the Westminster Joint Committee on Human Rights, Jack Straw, Section 3 of the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993, the governor of Greenock prison, the Parole Board, the director of health and care for the Scottish Prison Service and, of course, the prisoner al-Megrahi himself. We might say that Mr MacAskill was at great pains to establish his authority.
So there is no question about the source of the decision. But, unfortunately, Mr MacAskill’s statement raised plenty of questions about its content. There are three things about Mr MacAskill’s statement that leave a sour taste, by far the most bitter of which is the decision itself. >>> | Friday, August 21, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: Kenny MacAskill, a Scottish politician who would probably be unrecognised on the streets of Glasgow, strode confidently into the Scottish government’s media lounge to deliver the statement that the world was waiting for.
Mindful of his international audience and taking into account the hours of media advice he has been given from advisers who lined the room, his usual rapid-fire delivery slowed to a plodding pace.
The opening of his carefully prepared announcement in which he recalled the night that 259 bodies fell from the sky over Lockerbie, in a bombing that killed 11 people in the town below, took on the tone of an inappropriate Jackanory episode.
“Four days before Christmas, men, women and children going about their daily lives were cruelly murdered. They included 11 from one small Scottish town. That — town — was — Lockerbie.”
Until yesterday he was best known as the man who wanted to rid Scotland of its booze-and-blade culture. Now Mr MacAskill, a mild-mannered, liberal-minded lawyer, will go down in history as the man who allowed one of the world’s most notorious mass-murdering terrorists to walk free from jail. >>> Lorraine Davidson | Friday, August 21, 2009
DAILY EXPRESS: OUTRAGE spread across the globe last night as the man responsible for the murder of 270 innocent people in the Lockerbie bombing was freed on “compassionate” grounds.
Grieving relatives insisted that 57-year-old Abdel Basset al-Megrahi should have been left to rot in prison.
Clad in a white shell-suit, baseball cap and scarf, Megrahi was able to walk up the steps of the private Libyan charter jet waiting at Glasgow airport to take him home to Tripoli, despite terminal cancer leaving him with just months to live.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill claimed Megrahi’s release would show the world that Scotland was a compassionate country. But the act brought worldwide condemnation.
US President Barack Obama branded it “a mistake” and David Cameron called it a “very bad” decision.
Those who lost loved ones called it an affront to justice and said Megrahi should only be going home “in a box”. >>> Gabriel Milland | Friday, August 21, 2009
