A minute-by minute account of today's Scottish Parliament debate on the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Megrahi can be read on the politics blog of The Guardian. Regrettably, the blogger appears to know very little about the Scottish political scene.
The debate has ended, but the vote will not be taken until 17.00.
"MSPs voted by 73 to 50 with one abstention to pass amendments criticising the Scottish Government."
[The sentence immediately above is from the BBC News website. Given that the SNP forms a minority government, with only 47 seats in the 129 seat parliament, this outcome can be counted some kind of success. And as Magnus Linklater (the Scotland Editor of The Times) writes in his Holyrood Sketch:
"Like most of the “big” subjects that the Holyrood Parliament has dealt with, this one brought out occasional eloquence, and not a little passion. And though the SNP government, perhaps inevitably, lost the vote, it did not necessarily lose the argument."]
An article in today's Guardian (Gordon Brown's role in release of Megrahi revealed) concludes:
ReplyDeleteMegrahi dropped his appeal two days before MacAskill announced he would be freed, claiming he believed it would assist his release – a disclosure which has raised suspicions of a deal between Scottish and Libyan ministers. Those claims have been repeatedly denied by Scottish ministers.
Apart from all the kerfuffle and bluster, this is the only question that really matters: Why has the Lockerbie convict abandoned his appeal?
The question was posed by Dr Hans Koechler, UN-appointed Observer at the Lockerbie trial, on 31 August 2009 - see http://i-p-o.org/IPO-nr-doubts-Lockerbie_appeal-31Aug2009.htm
Can we please have an answer?