More than a year has passed since the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Abdelbaset Megrahi’s case back to the Criminal Appeal Court on the basis that his conviction might have amounted to a miscarriage of justice. More than nine months have passed since the first procedural hearing in the new appeal was held. More than six months have passed since the appellant’s full written grounds of appeal were lodged with the court.
Why has no date yet been fixed for the hearing of the appeal? Why does it now seem impossible that the appeal can be heard and a judgement delivered by the twentieth anniversary of the disaster on 21 December 2008?
The answer is simple: because the Crown, in the person of the Lord Advocate, and the United Kingdom Government, in the person of the Advocate General for Scotland, have been resorting to every delaying tactic in the book (and where a particular obstructionist wheeze isn’t in the book, have been asking the court to rewrite the book to insert it). The judges on a number of occasions have expressed disquiet at the Crown’s dilatoriness; but have so far done nothing meaningful to curb it. This must end. The delay is becoming scandalous. The reputation of Scotland’s criminal justice system is being further tarnished in the eyes of the world.
And all the while a man languishes in Greenock Prison. I have never made any bones about my view that the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi on the evidence led at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands is the worst Scottish miscarriage of justice in the past one hundred years, indeed since the conviction of Oscar Slater. But even those who do not share my views, or who are neutral on the issue, would surely accept that the delay in bringing the new appeal to a hearing on the merits is beginning to look cruel and unconscionable.
It is up to the judges to start cracking the whip. The words of Francis Bacon in his essay “Of Judicature” are perhaps worth recalling:
“A judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way, by raising valleys and taking down hills: so when there appeareth on either side an high hand, … cunning advantages taken, combination, power, … then is the virtue of a judge seen, to make inequality equal; that he may plant his judgment as upon an even ground.”
The Government is not "delaying" anything. The case is OVER! He was found guilty, but you keep beating that dead horse because you have no other life.
ReplyDeleteDoes it make any difference to you whatsover that Libya has accepted responsibility and paid billions in compensation?
Frank Duggan
The case is not over. An independent body, the SCCRC, has (after an investigation extending over more than three years) determined that, on six grounds (including that no reasonable tribunal could have reached certain factual conclusions that the trial court reached), there may have been a miscarriage of justice and has referred the case back to the Criminal Appeal Court. It is this appeal that the Crown is using every manoeuvre to delay.
ReplyDeleteLibya has never, in fact, admitted involvement in the attack. What it has done is to accept responsibility for the acts of Libyan state employees, whatever those acts may have been. If Abdelbaset Megrahi's current appeal succeeds, there will be no extant Libyan admission of responsibility for the Lockerbie tragedy. The billions paid to Lockerbie relatives were simply the price that had to be paid for removal of the economic sanctions against Libya.
The conviction of Megrahi, in a court that I played a small part in having set up, was an injustice. There are still some lawyers who care about injustice, and I am one.
I agree with Frank Duggan. Libya DID accept responsibility. Megrahi WAS a state emplyoee and while he may not have acted alone, and there may be others still at large who are also guilty, Megrahi IS GUILTY in the bombing of PA 103. If Libya paid only for the lifting of sanctions, the payment would not have gone to victims' famiies. It would have gone to some government fund. You and all of the other conspiracy theorists need to think about the (lack of) justice in the pathetic blather that you distribute that is wholly lacking in fact. The facts are (among many others) that Megrahi was in Malta on the 21st on a coded passport and registered in a hotel under the same false name as on his coded passport. He bought the clothes from Mary's house in which the bomb was wrapped. He is a liar, a mass murderer and deserves to rot in jail like the piece of trash that he is.
ReplyDeleteThe Judges ARE "cracking the whip". The Crown's position is that the Court has a role in establishing the credentials of any expert who would be carrying out such testing, and a role in preserving the integrity of the productions. In addition the Crown submitted to the Court, at an earlier hearing, that the appellant's request for access did not explain why the access was required or what sort of testing would be carried out.
ReplyDelete...."He is a liar, a mass murderer and deserves to rot in jail like the piece of trash that he is..." Such an assessment on Mandela Day reminds me of Gandhi´s statement: Western civilisation? That would be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteThere are many hate forums in the internet. This blog is not one of them. Here we discuss seriously. So please stay out if you ony have hate in mind.
And please name yourself.
Bo Adam
It's a public forum, with an option to post anonymously - lest the writer of comments be taken of context and written about by the Blog author and others in an unfactual manner as is the case in many writings here. If the Blog author doesn't want comments then then he shouldn't provide the pubic forum. You may view my comments as hateful, but what other response would one have about Megrahi and others murdering 270 people?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKiePbTcAfY&feature=related
ReplyDeleteIf you were a parent and your child was starving, then you would accept responsibility for anything to end the suffering. The Libyan people endured a desperate existence because of the sanctions.
ReplyDeleteThe Libyan people endured a desparate existence because of the terrorist acts (and other tortuous acts that the Libyans continue to endure) committed by their government.
ReplyDeleteWhen a country doesn't acknowledge Israel and is rich in oil and gas and throws the US and UK oil companies out of the country, surely it becomes a target and is most likely be set up. Megrahi was clearly framed.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of "a country that throws the [other country's] oil companies out of the country", Libya has retaliated for the arrest of Qaddafi's son for his arrest in Switzerland for beating his staff. Hmmm.... If Libya will react in this manner to a seemingly small skirmish, just think what else they would do in more complex international situations ... Have their employee (Megrahi) bomb planes of course!
ReplyDelete"Libya Reduces Flights to Switzerland After Qaddafi's Son Arrest
By Marc Wolfensberger
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Afriqiyah Airways has cut its weekly service to Geneva to a single flight, a week after Hannibal Qaddafi, the youngest son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, and his wife Aline were arrested in the Swiss city.
The government-owned carrier, in a statement posted on Geneva International Airport's Web site yesterday, said the Libyan civil aviation authorities had asked the company to cut the number of flights from three ``due to unexpected operational problems at Tripoli airport.''
Jean-Philippe Jeannerat, a spokesman for the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wasn't immediately available to comment when contacted in the Swiss capital Bern today.
Hannibal and his wife were arrested in a Geneva hotel on July 15 after two employees of the couple filed a complaint accusing them of mistreatment. They were released two days later on bail of 500,000 Swiss francs ($484,000).
Robert Assael, the Qaddafis' lawyer, has rejected the mistreatment accusation, saying the employees were using the claim to get refugee status in Switzerland, Le Temps reported on July 18. The two employees were ``held against their will, beaten, exploited and insulted,'' according to Francois Membrez, the lawyer representing them, the newspaper said.
Aicha, Muammar Qaddafi's daughter, came to Geneva on July 17 and accused the Swiss authorities of ``racist behavior,'' Le Temps also reported. "