[This is the headline over an article in The Herald by Canon Patrick Keegans who was parish priest in Lockerbie when Pan Am 103 fell on the town and killed eleven of his neighbours and friends in Sherwood Crescent. The following are the last six paragraphs.]
As far as we know, next week Mr Megrahi, to the relief of his wife and family, will be going home. I am rejoicing. That is the only word I can use. I would gladly help him on to the plane. I am glad that compassion still walks hand in hand with justice. As a Scot and as one so closely involved with Lockerbie, I would like to be able to thank the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, for what would be a courageous decision.
It is courageous enough to grant release on compassionate grounds but it will take even more courage to allow the appeal to continue. If the appeal is halted, then justice will be denied on several fronts. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi has a right to due legal process, to clear his name. The families of Pan Am 103, if the appeal is halted, will be left with nothing. We will be left in the dark guessing at what would have been the verdict in the appeal.
The families of Pan Am 103, as victims, deserve justice; they deserve to know the truth. My own dark thought is that any decision made by Mr MacAskill will not really be based on compassion but on political expediency. There seems to be a desire to get Mr Megrahi out of the country and to have the appeal halted at all costs. Perhaps the Crown Office and governments fear what might be revealed as the appeal continues.
So, I would urge all the families of Pan Am 103 to do two things: first, to respond with compassion to Mr Megrahi and his family; and, secondly, to remember the motto, "Pan Am 103: the truth must be known". Surely there has to be some mechanism by which the material in the appeal can be brought into the public domain. This is not the end of Lockerbie.
On a personal level, I say to my many friends in America who strongly disagree with my views that the compassion and love you have experienced from me and from the people of Lockerbie will always be there for you.
And, again on a personal level, I would say to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi as he leaves Scottish soil and returns home: "Be at peace now with God and your family."
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