[This is the headline over a hard-hitting article by Professor Hans Köchler that appeared in the Sunday Express on this date in 2009. The last three paragraphs read as follows:]
If Scotland prides itself in its unique judicial system, then the authorities should exercise all efforts to repair the damage that has been done to the country’s reputation by the flawed judicial proceedings in the case of Mr Megrahi.
If Mr MacAskill is indeed serious about dealing with the matter [repatriation of Megrahi] strictly within legal parameters, as he repeatedly said, the competent Scottish authorities should finally make those steps that are necessary to identify the actual Lockerbie bombers (plural) wherever they may be.
They have succeeded for too long in using the Scottish judicial system to make Mr Megrahi a scapegoat in the strange and ugly world of international power politics.
Thus spoke Professor Hans Köchler.
ReplyDeleteProfessors must speak like that.
Noble, decent, well written, not accusing anybody in particular, not too angry.
He can't say:
From the beginning of this case we have seen an absurd and deliberate distortion of evidence and conclusions.
Examples are too numerous to mention, but reading the published grounds by SCCRC is a good start. Or reading one of numerous well-researched books published, the conclusions in which nobody has even attempted to challenge.
It is has throughout the case been made clear that true justice is the last that, with others, The Crown, Colin Boyd and MacAskill would want. The embarrassment of convicting a man on the grounds given, and the political implications would be on an unimaginable scale.
Not only have key witnesses for the prosecution been discredited, there is direct evidence of perjury and obstruction of justice.
To have Scotland cleaning its reputation a new trial or at least a hearing would have to and several witnesses would have to be prosecuted for the crimes mentioned.
Naturally such an initiative would not come from the people mentioned, and as long as there are too few votes in it, it has quite easily been swept under the carpet.
Nothings is surprising, except maybe that the Scottish people care so little for the health of what is the building factor in a democracy, and trying to reach the truth in the murder case of 270 people.