OPINION:The freeing of the Lockerbie bomber serves no greater good and should not be welcomed as a 'just and humane' decision, writes TRINA VARGO
THE IRISH Times'seditorial (August 21st) welcoming the decision to free Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who murdered 270 people in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, is hard to comprehend. Partly because it seems to blithely brush aside the guilty verdict and suggest that Megrahi may be innocent. Much weight is given to the view of a minority of families of the victims, yet the majority of the families accept the verdict; the Scottish, British, and US governments accept the verdict; the international community accepts the verdict; and even Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister who released Megrahi, accepts the verdict.
Your editorial called this release just and humane. But Megrahi was already receiving sufficiently humane treatment by being allowed to live the rest of his life in the relative comfort of a Scottish prison – far better conditions than prisoners in Libya enjoy (the most recent US state department human rights report on Libya noted that “security forces reportedly subjected prisoners and detainees to cruel, inhuman, or degrading conditions and denied them adequate medical care”).
Megrahi had excellent medical treatment in Scotland and his wife lived nearby – her home reportedly paid for by a charity run by Muammar Gadafy’s son.
What compassion was shown to Megrahi’s victims, to their families? Whatever one’s views about the release of prisoners in Northern Ireland, that occurred as part of the Belfast Agreement, approved by the people, and many believe it was a measure necessary for a greater good, though that is not necessarily comforting the families of the victims. According to this newspaper’s editorial in December 2004, “if the release of the prisoners is a make-or-break point in the deal in Northern Ireland . . . then it can be justified”. In this case, there is no justification for the decision, no claim whatsoever can be made of some greater good being served.
I know a little about this case as I worked on it for more than 10 years as US senator Ted Kennedy’s foreign policy adviser.
I drafted legislation on everything from sanctions against Libya to allowing for a memorial cairn honouring the victims to be placed in Arlington national cemetery. I received multiple briefings from multiple sources on the case; I visited the FBI to see the case that was built and I saw many things I’m sorry I had to see and which I will never forget.
I came to know many of the families and was one of only a few non-family members asked to be with them as they gathered in Washington before daybreak on that January day in 2001 to await the delivery of the verdict from Scotland on closed-circuit television. I stay in contact with several of them to this day.
Brian Flynn, the brother of one of the victims, and someone who has become a friend, said in US television interviews that six people in Scotland had been denied compassionate release.
What could they have done that was worse than killing 270 people? If even one person was denied it, should not Megrahi have been denied it? Flynn further noted that 60 to 100 people die every year in Scottish prisons of natural causes. Why weren’t those prisoners for whom it was known end of life was near released for humane reasons?
There seems to be no reasonable rationale for this decision and, when pressed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN for precedent, MacAskill was unable to offer any.
Watch this space for the oil deals that will not be far behind.
Megrahi killed 270 people and served eight years – that works out at about 11 days per victim.
Sophocles said there is a point at which even justice is unjust. This was not one of them. There is no reason to welcome this decision.
Trina Vargo served as a foreign policy adviser to US senator Edward Kennedy from 1987 to 1998