Saturday 4 February 2012

Megrahi biography is to be published

[This is the headline over an article by Lucy Adams in today’s edition of The Herald.  It reads as follows:]

The publication of the official biography of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was announced yesterday.
The 500-page paperback, Megrahi: You Are My Jury, will be published this spring by Edinburgh-based Birlinn.
The book is expected to reveal new evidence exculpating Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan man convicted of the bombing.
Its summary states: "You know me as the Lockerbie bomber. I know that I'm innocent. Here, for the first time, is my true story: How I came to be blamed for Britain's worst mass murder, my nightmare decade in prison and the truth about my controversial release. Please read it and decide for yourself. You are now my jury."
Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of the bombing which killed 270 people in December 1988, but served just eight years of his 27-year sentence in Scottish prisons before being released in August 2009 on compassionate grounds. He has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and doctors predicted he had less then three months to live.
The book by writer, researcher and television producer John Ashton is expected to reveal swathes of new information.
He has been involved with the Lockerbie case for the past 18 years and was previously a researcher with Megrahi's defence team.


[A facebook page for the book can be found here and a Twitter account    @MegrahiURmyJury.]

3 comments:

  1. I notice that Lucy Adams once more reinforces the fallacy that Megrahi only served eight years. He served more than ten. She carefully says "in Scottish prisons", because nearly three years at the beginning was served in the Netherlands.

    Except, wouldn't the prison block at Camp Zeist also count as a "Scottish prison" under the circumstances? Why is Lucy, who undoubtedly knows the actual time served, try to fudge it?

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  2. I seem to recall that the "holding area" at Zeist was staffed by Scottish Prison Service officers and was intended to constitue a Scottish prison. As Rolfe says, Basset (and Lamin Fhima)spent his time on remand there.I'm no expert on legal systems, but it's all incarceration.

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  3. Rolfe and Aku are correct. Megrahi was in a Scottish prison from 5 April 1999 until his repatriation on 20 August 2009. The prisons in which he was held were successively HMP Zeist, HMP Barlinnie and HMP Greenock. The punishment part of his life sentence was calculated to run from 5 April 1999.
    (HMP = Her Majesty's Prison)

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