Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, walks on to his
airplane at Glasgow International Airport, Glasgow
Scotland, Thursday Aug. 20, 2009. Scotland's Justice
Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced the release earlier
Thursday, freeing the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber Abdel
Baset al-Megrahi from prison on compassionate grounds.
(AP Photo/Scott Heppell)
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was convicted of bombing Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground. He was convicted on the evidence of a Maltese shopkeeper who said he sold al-Megrahi a shirt, scraps of which were found wrapped around the bomb.
Scotland released al-Megrahi on Thursday because he is terminally ill with prostrate cancer. He has been allowed to go home to Libya to die. This is in line with Scotland's policy of allowing terminally ill prisoners to be released.
Lately, the Scottish courts found that al-Megrahi did have grounds for an appeal, but he chose to take the compassionate release instead.
If this had all happened quietly there would be much less push back. The final straw when al-Megrahi was given a hero's welcome when he arrived in Libya.
That's when President Obama said that the reception was "highly objectionable." And even FBI Director Robert Mueller made a public statement, calling the release "detrimental to the cause of justice."
On the one hand this is a man who was convicted of killing nearly three hundred people, and recently was told he has grounds for appeal. On the other hand this is a man dying of cancer who wants to die at home.
Compassion versus justice. Which should have prevailed?
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Comments
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:"
I think the blessings for him that gives here depend upon whether the hero's welcome was given because Libya believes him to be not guilty or because they know he is guilty.
Oh BTW, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV Scene 1, for those who were not raised by English professors.
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