[This is the heading over a post on the Hythlodæus blog. It refers to a report which is said to appear in today's edition of The Observer. As the post itself states, the report is not to be found on the newspaper's website. The post reads in part:]
It may be many years before the whole story behind the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the alleged Lockerbie bomber, is told. However, there are regular snippets being released under freedom of information requests.
The latest such releases seem to have been picked up by The Observer in Scotland alone, not even deemed important enough to be published online alongside the rest of the Observer’s content. In a short article, the little-read left-wing paper reveals that, as was widely speculated, the move to release al-Megrahi began more then two years before Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill announced the actual release.
The new timeline of events as presented in today’s article is as follows:
May 2007
*SNP Government elected to Holyrood.
*Tony Blair signs a Memorandum of Understanding with Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya. This Memorandum was a standard text, allowing for the exchange of all prisoners and remains legally binding upon both the UK and Libya.
June/July 2007
*BP, the British-owned oil giant, sign a multi-million dollar deal to exploit oil resources in Libya.
*The British Government signs an agreement to supply Libya, a dictatorship, with water cannons. Rumours persist regarding sales of additional lethal and non-lethal arms to Libya.
*Tony Blair stands down as Prime Minister.
*Whitehall-based Civil Servants contact their Scottish counterparts in order to fix the UK’s “negotiating position” on the already signed Memorandum of Understanding.
June-December 2007
*The SNP Government lobby various Westminster figures, including Lord Falconer, to add a clause to the Memorandum of Understanding excluding al-Megrahi from prisoner exchange deals.
December 2007
*Jack Straw, at that time Home Secetary, writes to Kenny MacAskill stating that the UK Government is unable to secure a deal on al-Megrahi and that time has run out as far as negotiating is concerned.
August 2009
*Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi released and repatriated to Libya.
*Kenny MacAskill faces censure by the Scottish Parliament for his decision to release al-Megrahi but maintains that the decision to release him was his alone.
*The Scottish Government is heavily criticised by the US Government and various British political figures. The British Government, beset by it’s own problems, maintain their support for the decision.
Despite what Kenny MacAskill maintains, it does appear that the decision to release al-Megrahi was out of his hands. By signing a treaty which legally bound the Scottish Government to release Libyan prisoners, the Westminster administration over-ruled the devolution settlement undermining the sovereignty of the Scottish Government and the democratic will of the Scottish People in order to appease a dictatorship. (...)
Perhaps, as we bomb the living daylights of democracy into Afghanistan, the 646 "Expenses Seekers" in the Palace of Westminster would do well to reflect upon who put them in that privileged position.
ReplyDelete"Primus inter pares" is a hallowed privilege bestowed upon the leader of the "Government of the people, by the people, for the people."
Britain is not blind. T
The one-eyed man needs to wake up and smell something that is not Lord Matelot's erse.
I will re-visit this.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, Dr Jim Swire has my total respect - how the man has retained his dignity in the face of grief no parent should have to face is worthy of admiration beyond the limits of my vocabulary.
The Observer article is based on FoI releases which confirm that the PTA was agreed in principle by Blair before the Scottish government were advised about it. This merely confirms the SNP position at the time when there was the emergency statement to Parliament. It didn't seem that there was anything new as typically with press reports there is conflation of the PTA and compassionate grounds for release.
ReplyDeleteThis is all old news. Westminster never tried to enforce the PTA against the will of the Scottish government. We don't know what would have happened if they had tried that.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, the actual release was done under the Compassionate Release provisions, specifically rejecting Prisoner Transfer.
The Observer doesn't really have a handle on this.
Yeah, nowhere in there did I see anything about Scotland forced to enact compassionate release rules. And the whole period of Jan 2008-Aug 2009, with diagnosis and the grounds for actual release decided is simply not in the article - from a previous PTA approach, through a 20 month gap, to release.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, Tony Blair initially thought he could deliver a prisoner transfer, because Jack McConnell would have agreed to it if he'd been told to. Tony was his party leader, he wouldn't have had an option.
ReplyDeleteHowever, during the negotiations, I think near the end or even at the end, 3rd May 2007 happened. Tony Blair was no longer in a position to tell the First Minister what to do, because the First Minister was now Alex Salmond.
Blair backed off, emphasising that he'd always admitted that the final say on the matter was for the Scottish government. The new SNP government made it fairly clear that they weren't taking orders from Blair. And in any case, the outstanding appeal meant that prisoner transfer wasn't on the agenda anyway, so things remained as they were.
I suspect that the original intention, if things had gone to plan, was for Megrahi to be persuaded to drop the appeal in return for being allowed to go home (and sod any promises made to the US relatives about his serving out his sentence in Scotland). I'm not sure Megrahi would have acceded to that, in 2007, apparently a healthy middle-aged man with a good prospect of a successful appeal on the cards, but who knows.
The terminal diagnosis chenged all that, and who can blame him for putting return home at a higher priority in these circumstances. However, I'm confused as to why he dropped the appeal. He said he was persuaded it would improve his changes of going home - he was keeping his options open in case prisoner transfer was the chosen vehicle. But by the time the withdrawal of the appeal was announced, everybody and his dog knew that compassionate release was going to be the outcome.
I still suspect Kenny MacAskill of putting pressure on him to withdraw the appeal, during the infamous prison visit. Maybe making that an unofficial condition of compassionate release. (Obviously, the SNP government didn't want to go for prisoner transfer, because that appears to have been what Westminster wanted.)
So I ask the question, what was Kenny MacAskill's motive for wanting the appeal dropped? He had nothing to do with the investigation or the conviction or anything - he didn't come on the scene until May 2007. The mood music in the SNP over the years has generally been that Megrahi didn't do it. So what did he find out when he became Justice Minister that made him close ranks with the previous Establishment and manoeuvre to get the appeal dropped and the evidence to stay decently buried?
Enquiring minds want to know.
hmmm.... yes.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that Kenny MacAskill was a decent and honest man who should be taken at his word? An outlandish theory I know but not impossible.
ReplyDeletePrisoner transfer wouldn't have succeeded at least in the short run. The American relatives were going to take the decision for judicial review.
ReplyDeleteThe UK government couldn't postpone the appeal any longer. Libya wanted Megrahi back as soon as possible. Both governments wanted an end to it all. So a plan was hatched.
Is it possible that Kenny MacAskill was a decent and honest man who should be taken at his word? An outlandish theory I know but not impossible.
ReplyDeleteAs a long-time paid-up SNP member, I have no motive to bad-mouth Kenny. I have nothing against the guy at all. However, I thought his apparent eagerness to get that appeal dropped was very strange. As was his repeated condemnatory attitude during his announcement, asserting categorically that Megrahi was a guilty man without even a passing mention of the SCCRC report or the admitted possibility that the whole thing was a miscarriage of justice.
I think he wanted the appeal stopped, and I'd like to know why. Maybe it was just lawyer solidarity, wanting to avoid embarrassing the justice system of Scotland. But I wonder.
Of course he wanted the appeal stopped. So did Salmond. They were all in it together with the UK government to minimise damage to the Scottish judiciary system and to hide the truth, which must be awful judging by the lengths they were prepared to go to in deceiving the public as to the true circumstances surrounding Megrahi's release.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete.... and to hide the truth, which must be awful judging by the lengths they were prepared to go to in deceiving the public as to the true circumstances surrounding Megrahi's release.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's my thinking, to some extent. Though I don't think there was all that much deception surrounding the release, beyond the securing of the withdrawal of the appeal. But think it through.
As I said, I've been an SNP member for a long time. Way before devolution. I know these people slightly, as people. They're not "establishment", they want to rip up the British establishment. They cordially detest the UK government, and the idea of them collaborating with it in anything beyond making sure the roads and the railways join up at the border is laughable.
Way back when, 15 years ago or so, the general feeling within the SNP membership was that Megrahi didn't do it. There were books on sale at SNP conferences and that sort of thing. And yet, as soon as the SNP gets into power, and presumably finds out stuff we don't know about, this iconoclastic, stuff the British establishment party, which had absolutely zero involvement in the investigation or the trial and presumably every motive for embarrassing the parties who were involved, suddenly starts behaving the same way the other lot did.
What did they find out?
I don't think they found out anything. What they did do was keep in office the Lord Advocate from the ancien regime. In my view, this is the worst mistake that the incoming SNP administration made (and not just because of Lockerbie). Mrs Angiolini did her traineeship in the Crown Office and every single day of her working life has been spent in its service. There was never the remotest chance that she would cast a sceptical eye over the Crown Office version of "the truth".
ReplyDeleteIt could be as simple as that, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think it was supposed to be a conciliatory gesture to keep her in office.