[This is the title of a long article in The Malta Independent on Sunday by Dr George Vella, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malta. The first few paragraphs are reproduced below, but the article deserves to be read in full.]
The recent release of Abdel Basset al Megrahi from a Scottish jail on humanitarian grounds, and the controversy which has erupted on the decision of the UK and the Scottish authorities to grant such an amnesty, has once again brought the issue of the disaster at Lockerbie to world attention.
I do not intend going into the merits or demerits of such a decision, but have to register my disappointment at the fact that Mr Megrahi, for reasons unknown, decided to, or was made to, abandon an appeal against the court sentence that had incriminated him as the person responsible for the Lockerbie disaster.
Over the past few years there has been mounting respected legal opinion that openly and publicly expressed grave doubts as to how correct the decision of the Scottish Court was that had found al-Megrahi guilty.
Serious doubts also emerged as to how reliable and how truthful certain witnesses were. Everything was pointing in the direction of a new trial, which most probably would have exculpated Mr al-Megrahi.
In all probability it would also have shattered, once and for all, the theory that the luggage containing the bomb that caused the disaster had been loaded at Malta airport.
I do not see how Malta can clear its name in this Lockerbie issue, now that the appeal has been abandoned.
This is very unfair, because there is mounting compelling evidence that the bomb could not have been loaded in Malta.
No comments:
Post a Comment