[This is the headline over a report on the website of The Times of Malta. The following excerpts are particularly interesting for the comments of the anonymous Libyan official.]
The Scottish government is poised to officially decide to allow the former Libyan agent convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing to be released from prison and return home on compassionate grounds, according to reports.
An American lawyer who worked on the defence team of Abdel Basset al Megrahi said the Libyan, who is 57 and has terminal prostate cancer, was to be released imminently. (...)
A Libyan official in Tripoli said an agreement for Megrahi's release was "in the last steps" but added that a deal had also been struck that neither side would make any official announcement about Megrahi's release until he was on home soil. (...)
Frank Rubino, an American lawyer who previously worked on Megrahi's legal team, told Britain's Sky television that he had been told by al Megrahi's current defence team the Libyan would be allowed to go home soon.
"I am told that it will be in the very near future," he said. (...)
"The deal is now already in the last steps," the Libyan official, who did not want to be identified, said in Tripoli. "We have an agreement between the two sides not to make any statement until he (al Megrahi) comes home."
[Note by RB: I wonder if this "deal" contains a term to the effect that Mr Megrahi will abandon his appeal? The Scottish Government Justice Department has unequivocally stated that no suggestion was ever made to Megrahi that his prospects of compassionate release were dependent upon, or would be improved by, abandonment of his appeal. But could it be that there is an "understanding" that abandonment will take place? A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man.]
My friend Nicolo Machiavelli comments: For the politicians on all sides it´s “game over”. They already inserted their coins for a new and different game. Unfortunately somebody blocked the reset button so the new game couldn´t start from square one. Therefore they called their technicians, the diplomats, to remove the obstacles. The first approach, the PTA, was too primitive. An elegant solution could now be, Nicolo says, a release on compassionate grounds by the Scottish and afterwards Mr. Megrahi is persuaded by the Libyans to abandon his appeal. Of course American officials would speak strictly out against such a solution - in public - to satisfy the American public.
ReplyDeleteThere would then only be one real victim: Mr. Megrahi who dies as a convicted murderer. And his family. And his friends.
But my friend Nicolo adds that only a fool could believe that this would be the end of the Lockerbie affair. In decades ahead, when all participants are dead, students of jurisdiction will study this historic case to understand how politics and jurisdiction can intermingle, how a court case can be fatally flawed and how a public review of all that was hindered. Their teachers will, hopefully, teach them that this should never happen again. When all the secret files are declassified voluminous books will be written where every participant will be named and his role assessed. It will be Like a purgatory.
Adam