[The following are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Herald.]
The Holyrood Ministerial roadshow received a boost in Stirling when unexpected visitor and former Labour foe Dennis Canavan received applause for backing the SNP-administration’s approach on the Megrahi case.
The former Labour MP turned independent MSP received the first applause of a public meeting in the city’s Albert Halls to coincide with a cabinet meeting convened by Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in the absence of Alex Salmond who is on holiday.
Mr Canavan, still a popular figure in Stirlingshire, rose to support the issue of raising Scotland’s profile on the international stage.
He then said he supported the decision of Mr MacAskill almost a year ago to release on compassionate grounds the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, the applause for his comments doubling as he “wholeheartedly supported” the refusal of Scottish ministers to heed a summons to appear before US senators.
But the former MSP said “unanswered questions” about the Megrahi conviction led him to believe an international commission or tribunal would be best placed to reveal what had really happened during the case.
“What action is the Scottish Government taking to bring about such an inquiry?” he asked, prompting Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to respond that, while he supported such a course of events, the Scottish Government simply did not have the powers needed to order such an inquiry, which could only be created by the UK, the US or the United Nations.
[The local newspaper for the area in which the meeting was held, the Stirling Observer, reports the exchange as follows:]
Former Falkirk West MSP Dennis Canavan raised the controversial subject of the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
He said he supported justice secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release the bomber on compassionate grounds – and the Scottish Government’s decision not to go “crawling across to the other side of the Atlantic” to give evidence at a US inquiry – but added that some kind of international inquiry was necessary and asked what steps the administration was taking on this issue.
Mr MacAskill answered that when he made the decision to release the bomber he “also made clear that there are outstanding issues”.
He added: “I made it quite clear that I would fully support an inquiry that had the appropriate jurisdiction.
“Scotland doesn’t have that jurisdiction however. It is beyond the limitations we have either as a government or in the laws of Scotland.”
[The excuse about the Scottish Government not having sufficient powers to institute a meaningful inquiry is becoming boring. To quote from a recent letter sent by the Justice for Megrahi campaign:]
The Scottish Government should not be allowed to expect other authorities to pick up the gauntlet.
*The case was investigated by a Scottish police force.
*The trial was conducted under Scots Law.
*Mr Al-Megrahi was convicted under Scots Law.
*Mr Al-Megrahi was imprisoned in a Scottish gaol.
*The SCCRC referred the second appeal to the Scottish Court of Appeal.
*Mr Al-Megrahi was given compassionate release by the Scottish Cabinet Minister for Justice.
This is undeniably a Scottish issue.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Libyan-hired docs had no role in Lockerbie release
Doctors for convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi had no role in the decision to release him last year on compassionate grounds because of prostate cancer, according to information from Scotland authorities Tuesday.
Three doctors hired by Libyan authorities to assess al Megrahi "played no part of any kind in the decision on compassionate release," according to the information provided on background by a Scottish government official.
Al Megrahi was given three months to live when he was set free by Scotland last year to return home to Libya.
He is still alive today, and four US senators from New York and New Jersey are demanding answers from Scotland on details of the decision to release him. (...)
In a letter Tuesday, the four Democratic senators -- Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, and Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York -- asked the Scottish government to release al Megrahi's full medical records.
"We understand that an extensive medical record was used as the basis of the decision to release Mr. al Megrahi, but only one three-page medical document with redactions has been released by the Scottish government," wrote the senators. "Independent examination of Mr. al Megrahi's complete medical record is necessary in order to understand the circumstances surrounding his compassionate release."
A Scottish government spokesman told CNN on Tuesday that the senators' letter had been received, and there would be a response in due course.
Additional information provided on background concluded that a three-month prognosis for al Megrahi was a reasonable estimate, said Dr. Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service.
Fraser's assessment was the medical report submitted to the justice secretary, along with reports from the Parole Board and the prison governor, according to the information, which also said all the reports supported a compassionate release of al Megrahi.
It said Fraser relied on advice from various cancer specialists and denied media reports that the decision was based on the opinion of one doctor.
According to the information, the assessments by the three doctors hired by Libya -- identified as Ibrahim Sherif, Karol Sikora and Jonathan Waxman -- were never considered by Fraser.
[From a report on the CNN website.]
Three doctors hired by Libyan authorities to assess al Megrahi "played no part of any kind in the decision on compassionate release," according to the information provided on background by a Scottish government official.
Al Megrahi was given three months to live when he was set free by Scotland last year to return home to Libya.
He is still alive today, and four US senators from New York and New Jersey are demanding answers from Scotland on details of the decision to release him. (...)
In a letter Tuesday, the four Democratic senators -- Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, and Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York -- asked the Scottish government to release al Megrahi's full medical records.
"We understand that an extensive medical record was used as the basis of the decision to release Mr. al Megrahi, but only one three-page medical document with redactions has been released by the Scottish government," wrote the senators. "Independent examination of Mr. al Megrahi's complete medical record is necessary in order to understand the circumstances surrounding his compassionate release."
A Scottish government spokesman told CNN on Tuesday that the senators' letter had been received, and there would be a response in due course.
Additional information provided on background concluded that a three-month prognosis for al Megrahi was a reasonable estimate, said Dr. Andrew Fraser, the director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service.
Fraser's assessment was the medical report submitted to the justice secretary, along with reports from the Parole Board and the prison governor, according to the information, which also said all the reports supported a compassionate release of al Megrahi.
It said Fraser relied on advice from various cancer specialists and denied media reports that the decision was based on the opinion of one doctor.
According to the information, the assessments by the three doctors hired by Libya -- identified as Ibrahim Sherif, Karol Sikora and Jonathan Waxman -- were never considered by Fraser.
[From a report on the CNN website.]
Reviews of "Lockerbie: Unfinished Business"
[Review by Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph:]
Last time we saw David Benson at the festival he was performing songs by Noel Coward in the clipped and high-class manner of the Master. His best-loved solo show to date, Think No Evil of Us, capitalised on his uncanny ability to impersonate Kenneth Williams.
So it’s quite a huge leap, then, for the actor to go all serious for a change and under-take the role of Jim Swire, the real-life doctor who has tirelessly campaigned to find out the truth behind the 1988 bombing of Pam Am Flight 103, which claimed his 24-year-old daughter Flora among its 270 victims.
Better known for his comedic impersonations, David Benson's latest production isn't just a stark contrast to what we expect from him - it's arguably his finest work to date.
It’s a leap Benson makes with absolute assurance in a performance that must rank as one of the most quietly compelling and finely judged on the Fringe.
As the first anniversary of the roundly condemned decision to release Ali Al Megrahi nears, Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, drawn from Swire’s own manuscripts, doesn’t hijack the occasion to make glib, headline-grabbing points. Swire’s position about the “Lockerbie bomber” is made abundantly clear towards the end: “The scandal is not that he was released but that he was ever imprisoned in the first place.”
The over-riding achievement of this concise, calmly delivered 60-minute address, though, is that it resists cut-and-dried conclusions and knee-jerk responses. It eloquently insists that the more carefully you look at the case, the more questions lie unanswered.
Part of its persuasive power lies in Benson’s own understatement. Tales of official obfuscation and obstruction are relayed with a wintry humour. There’s even matter for bleak mirth in a description of an encounter with Colonel Gaddafi conducted in a lavishly arrayed Libyan bunker lined with gun-toting female bodyguards.
Grief and anger are kept bundled under the cloak of British reticence. At times, we see the pain breaking through, as when, blinking back tears, he pictures the terrifying seconds on-board following the detonation. Such moments, almost unbearable to watch, bring home the fact that far from disqualifying Swire from his relentless quest for justice, his undying sense of loss underpins his mission with a humanity that has been woefully absent in far too many quarters for far too long.
[Review by Barry Gordon in The Scotsman:]
In Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, Benson plays Dr Jim Swire, the man who has sought (and fought) to bring those responsible for the murder of his daughter, Flora (as well as the other 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103), to justice.
There's not enough space to convey the raw emotion, depth and scope that goes into Benson's logical analysis as to why the attack took place, how it was achieved and, ultimately, not who was responsible, but who wasn't.
Controversy still surrounds this subject, 22 years on from the terrorist attack, public opinion largely divided on the matter. However, the best way to approach this show is to remind yourself that it's about a father who has lost his daughter.
Archive footage from the period, as well as a tear-welling cassette-recording of a song Flora sang as a seven-year-old, isn't a cynical ploy to tug at the heart-strings either, it's simply the truth.
Overall then, a story that many feel deserves to be told. As Benson as Swire says: "Justice is knowing the right people." Riveting.
[Review by Nadine McBay on the Big On Glasgow website:]
When we saw Abdelbaset al-Megrahi being given a hero’s welcome at Tripoli airport last August, many were appalled. Others found the sight of a mail jailed for the worst ever terrorist attack on UK soil being garlanded distasteful at best.
Indeed, in the ongoing furore since Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill gave the go-ahead to release al-Megrahi, the argument has been characterised as that between retribution for the killing of 270 people and compassion for a man supposedly in the advanced stages of terminal cancer.
And yet, to Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was on board that fatal flight, the scandal isn’t that al-Megrahi was released or seemingly refuses to die, the real scandal is that the Libyan was imprisoned in the first place.
Written and performed by Fringe veteran David Benson, this revelatory piece claims that the case against al-Megrahi hung on the involvement of his supposed accomplice Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a man who was unanimously acquitted by three judges in January 2001. More shocking still, it claims that the evidence points to Iranian, not Libyan responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
Based on his own interview with Swire, Peter Biddulph’s as-yet unpublished book Moving The World and other documentary evidence, including verbatim testimonies from the trial at Camp Zeist, Benson’s play is sober, meticulous and controversial – much like Swire himself. Briskly taking the stage, Benson shows us how Swire easily took a fake bomb onto a flight from Heathrow to JFK. ‘I made a lot of enemies with that stunt,’ he acknowledges, aware that to many – not least many of the grieving American families – he’s viewed as a deluded victim of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, a man driven so mad by his loss that he’s sided with the ‘enemy’. (...)
Portraying Swire as the unshowy, level-headed GP that he appears to be on camera, Benson rounds out the character with credible moments of humour and anguish. It’s also to Benson’s credit that he’s compacted over two decades of material into a compelling 70 minute piece of theatre. Often breaking out of the monologue for moments of action, news reports or to play another character, he’s pitched the piece somewhere between docu-drama and presentation. You’ll need your wits about you, certainly, and though Lockerbie won’t have you reeling in the face of pizzazz and spectacle, it can’t help but lead you to question the official record of events.
It closes with footage of the actual Mr and Mrs Swire at their daughter’s grave and a shot of the memorial to all those murdered that night. It’s a reminder that Benson has taken on a lot here; from Swire and his daughter to the reputations and motives of countless witnesses, experts and pawns. Kirsty Wark was at this performance; perhaps some of those she’s interviewed will take note too. Essential viewing, whatever your own theories are.
[The performance can be seen at the Gilded Balloon until 30 August. A video about the play can be viewed on The Guardian website.]
Last time we saw David Benson at the festival he was performing songs by Noel Coward in the clipped and high-class manner of the Master. His best-loved solo show to date, Think No Evil of Us, capitalised on his uncanny ability to impersonate Kenneth Williams.
So it’s quite a huge leap, then, for the actor to go all serious for a change and under-take the role of Jim Swire, the real-life doctor who has tirelessly campaigned to find out the truth behind the 1988 bombing of Pam Am Flight 103, which claimed his 24-year-old daughter Flora among its 270 victims.
Better known for his comedic impersonations, David Benson's latest production isn't just a stark contrast to what we expect from him - it's arguably his finest work to date.
It’s a leap Benson makes with absolute assurance in a performance that must rank as one of the most quietly compelling and finely judged on the Fringe.
As the first anniversary of the roundly condemned decision to release Ali Al Megrahi nears, Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, drawn from Swire’s own manuscripts, doesn’t hijack the occasion to make glib, headline-grabbing points. Swire’s position about the “Lockerbie bomber” is made abundantly clear towards the end: “The scandal is not that he was released but that he was ever imprisoned in the first place.”
The over-riding achievement of this concise, calmly delivered 60-minute address, though, is that it resists cut-and-dried conclusions and knee-jerk responses. It eloquently insists that the more carefully you look at the case, the more questions lie unanswered.
Part of its persuasive power lies in Benson’s own understatement. Tales of official obfuscation and obstruction are relayed with a wintry humour. There’s even matter for bleak mirth in a description of an encounter with Colonel Gaddafi conducted in a lavishly arrayed Libyan bunker lined with gun-toting female bodyguards.
Grief and anger are kept bundled under the cloak of British reticence. At times, we see the pain breaking through, as when, blinking back tears, he pictures the terrifying seconds on-board following the detonation. Such moments, almost unbearable to watch, bring home the fact that far from disqualifying Swire from his relentless quest for justice, his undying sense of loss underpins his mission with a humanity that has been woefully absent in far too many quarters for far too long.
[Review by Barry Gordon in The Scotsman:]
In Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, Benson plays Dr Jim Swire, the man who has sought (and fought) to bring those responsible for the murder of his daughter, Flora (as well as the other 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103), to justice.
There's not enough space to convey the raw emotion, depth and scope that goes into Benson's logical analysis as to why the attack took place, how it was achieved and, ultimately, not who was responsible, but who wasn't.
Controversy still surrounds this subject, 22 years on from the terrorist attack, public opinion largely divided on the matter. However, the best way to approach this show is to remind yourself that it's about a father who has lost his daughter.
Archive footage from the period, as well as a tear-welling cassette-recording of a song Flora sang as a seven-year-old, isn't a cynical ploy to tug at the heart-strings either, it's simply the truth.
Overall then, a story that many feel deserves to be told. As Benson as Swire says: "Justice is knowing the right people." Riveting.
[Review by Nadine McBay on the Big On Glasgow website:]
When we saw Abdelbaset al-Megrahi being given a hero’s welcome at Tripoli airport last August, many were appalled. Others found the sight of a mail jailed for the worst ever terrorist attack on UK soil being garlanded distasteful at best.
Indeed, in the ongoing furore since Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill gave the go-ahead to release al-Megrahi, the argument has been characterised as that between retribution for the killing of 270 people and compassion for a man supposedly in the advanced stages of terminal cancer.
And yet, to Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was on board that fatal flight, the scandal isn’t that al-Megrahi was released or seemingly refuses to die, the real scandal is that the Libyan was imprisoned in the first place.
Written and performed by Fringe veteran David Benson, this revelatory piece claims that the case against al-Megrahi hung on the involvement of his supposed accomplice Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a man who was unanimously acquitted by three judges in January 2001. More shocking still, it claims that the evidence points to Iranian, not Libyan responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
Based on his own interview with Swire, Peter Biddulph’s as-yet unpublished book Moving The World and other documentary evidence, including verbatim testimonies from the trial at Camp Zeist, Benson’s play is sober, meticulous and controversial – much like Swire himself. Briskly taking the stage, Benson shows us how Swire easily took a fake bomb onto a flight from Heathrow to JFK. ‘I made a lot of enemies with that stunt,’ he acknowledges, aware that to many – not least many of the grieving American families – he’s viewed as a deluded victim of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, a man driven so mad by his loss that he’s sided with the ‘enemy’. (...)
Portraying Swire as the unshowy, level-headed GP that he appears to be on camera, Benson rounds out the character with credible moments of humour and anguish. It’s also to Benson’s credit that he’s compacted over two decades of material into a compelling 70 minute piece of theatre. Often breaking out of the monologue for moments of action, news reports or to play another character, he’s pitched the piece somewhere between docu-drama and presentation. You’ll need your wits about you, certainly, and though Lockerbie won’t have you reeling in the face of pizzazz and spectacle, it can’t help but lead you to question the official record of events.
It closes with footage of the actual Mr and Mrs Swire at their daughter’s grave and a shot of the memorial to all those murdered that night. It’s a reminder that Benson has taken on a lot here; from Swire and his daughter to the reputations and motives of countless witnesses, experts and pawns. Kirsty Wark was at this performance; perhaps some of those she’s interviewed will take note too. Essential viewing, whatever your own theories are.
[The performance can be seen at the Gilded Balloon until 30 August. A video about the play can be viewed on The Guardian website.]
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Call to reveal Megrahi doctors' advice
The Scottish Government faced calls to name the doctors whose advice resulted in the assessment that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing had three months to live. (...)
The bomber was given three months to live, but is still living with his family in Tripoli.
Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made the decision to free the Libyan after receiving advice that no specialist "would be willing to say" if a three-month prognosis was reasonable.
Dr Andrew Fraser, director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), said in his report to Kenny MacAskill that his clinical assessment drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists.
Labour have now called on the SNP government to reveal the identities of those doctors and what their prognosis was.
The party's community safety spokesman James Kelly said: "It's time that Kenny MacAskill released the full facts surrounding the medical evidence of Al Megrahi's release."
As part of their push, Labour has pointed to a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology from two years ago.
It said patients with advanced metastatic prostate cancer, which is resistant to hormone treatment, had a median life expectancy of 19.2 months from the start of chemotherapy. (...)
A Scottish Government spokeswoman defended Dr Fraser and his assessment of Al Megrahi's condition, adding he was "a professional of unimpeachable integrity".
"Dr Fraser drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists in coming to his clinical assessment that a three month prognosis was a reasonable estimate for Al Megrahi - it was not based on the opinion of any one doctor," she said.
"These specialists included two consultant oncologists, two consultant urologists and a number of other specialists, including a palliative care team, and Mr Al Megrahi's primary care physician."
In a documentary screened in Scotland on Monday night, Mr MacAskill said he acted "in good faith" when he authorised the release of Al Megrahi.
He said in the STV programme: "I authorised it. I did so in good faith and I believe everybody who's been involved in this has also acted in good faith.
"It was my responsibility and I stand by my actions."
[From a report on the Sky News website.]
The bomber was given three months to live, but is still living with his family in Tripoli.
Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made the decision to free the Libyan after receiving advice that no specialist "would be willing to say" if a three-month prognosis was reasonable.
Dr Andrew Fraser, director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), said in his report to Kenny MacAskill that his clinical assessment drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists.
Labour have now called on the SNP government to reveal the identities of those doctors and what their prognosis was.
The party's community safety spokesman James Kelly said: "It's time that Kenny MacAskill released the full facts surrounding the medical evidence of Al Megrahi's release."
As part of their push, Labour has pointed to a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology from two years ago.
It said patients with advanced metastatic prostate cancer, which is resistant to hormone treatment, had a median life expectancy of 19.2 months from the start of chemotherapy. (...)
A Scottish Government spokeswoman defended Dr Fraser and his assessment of Al Megrahi's condition, adding he was "a professional of unimpeachable integrity".
"Dr Fraser drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists in coming to his clinical assessment that a three month prognosis was a reasonable estimate for Al Megrahi - it was not based on the opinion of any one doctor," she said.
"These specialists included two consultant oncologists, two consultant urologists and a number of other specialists, including a palliative care team, and Mr Al Megrahi's primary care physician."
In a documentary screened in Scotland on Monday night, Mr MacAskill said he acted "in good faith" when he authorised the release of Al Megrahi.
He said in the STV programme: "I authorised it. I did so in good faith and I believe everybody who's been involved in this has also acted in good faith.
"It was my responsibility and I stand by my actions."
[From a report on the Sky News website.]
Independent inquiry into Lockerbie could help the world to learn truth of atrocity
[This is the heading over two letters published in today's edition of The Herald. They read as follows:]
No matter whether you believe that Libya and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, seeking revenge for the bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi by the USAF in 1986, were responsible for Lockerbie, or whether you believe that it was Iran obtaining vengeance for the US destruction of its airliner in July 1988 with the loss of 290 lives, you are forced to the same conclusion: the Lockerbie atrocity was an act of revenge. What could better support Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s argument?
During the hearings in the Camp Zeist court, long before the verdict was reached, I heard a US citizen suggesting that “Libya should be nuked" and one of us was asked by another American how we (UK relatives) could bear to sit near the Libyan relatives in the public gallery. Was that a kind of school-bus racism or merely evidence of a presumption of as yet unproven guilt?
The US Lockerbie relatives I have met are decent folk with similar objectives in life to ours. Some have become friends and have been most generous on many occasions, welcoming us into their homes and sharing research with us. They deserve closure on their grief, just as we do in the UK, and it is very sad that some now seem unable to consider for themselves whether Megrahi really was guilty, preferring blindly to accept what their culture is telling them, a culture which seems to some of us, and I suspect to Cardinal O’Brien, to steer a path perilously close to revenge under the mantra of God’s Own Country “kicking ass”. But is the right ass being kicked, or is that of secondary importance in US culture?
It is as the cardinal says: there is a clash of cultures and, like him, I want to live in a culture capable of compassion. I believe that the Church of Scotland also supported compassionate release of Megrahi.
A culture tending towards vengeance will always find widespread support, because the lust for revenge is latent in us all. When I first went to see Colonel Gaddafi to ask that he allow his people to be tried in a Scottish court, I knew I did not want the alleged culprits to be tried in the US, where I felt sure that, given even a minimum of evidence, they would be found guilty and executed. Like the cardinal, I did not want that option to be available.
I also believed that Scottish justice was among the fairest available. I still believe that if Scotland can set up or allow a vehicle for the full objective re-examination of the evidence to be created, she could redeem her reputation for fairness. We must remember that our own Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found after more than three years of careful scrutiny that this trial may have been a miscarriage of justice.
History would look askance upon a country that left so great a question unresolved, and with such evidence available. The world might be more credulous of the result if Scotland allows a distinguished, expert and uninvolved set of examiners to address the issues. Yes, Scottish heads might roll, and to applaud that risks being vengeful, but there are still the entities of right and wrong in this world, and the Scottish nation has existed long enough to know the difference.
There was evidence at Camp Zeist that made me and many others doubt Megrahi’s guilt. Much more has accumulated since, and the total of it now strains credulity beyond breaking point. Not only that, some of the evidence which has accumulated, even since the SCCRC made its comments, suggests connivance in the perversion of justice. More detailed allegations should await a fully empowered re-assessment.
Rightly, Scotland accepted the burden of bringing justice down upon the heads of those responsible. For that privilege, it must now bear the responsibility for making sure that the verdict reached is sound, and seen to be sound, beyond any reasonable doubt.
The world owes us all the truth, and we need a system of justice in which we can have faith.
Dr Jim Swire
Cardinal Keith O’Brien has not missed and hit the wall. He is absolutely correct to attack the US “culture of vengeance” and support Scottish officials’ decision not to go crawling to America.
While every sympathy must go out to the bereaved families in America, it sometimes tends to be forgotten that Scotland also suffered greatly in the Lockerbie atrocity. I fully agree with Dr Jim Swire when he says we should look for justice rather than vengeance.
The night before the US led invasion of Iraq, I recall a telephone conversation I had with an American friend when we spoke of our horror of what was to come. We agreed that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but as my friend sadly remarked: “America has to blame someone, and anyone will do.”
Ruth Marr
No matter whether you believe that Libya and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, seeking revenge for the bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi by the USAF in 1986, were responsible for Lockerbie, or whether you believe that it was Iran obtaining vengeance for the US destruction of its airliner in July 1988 with the loss of 290 lives, you are forced to the same conclusion: the Lockerbie atrocity was an act of revenge. What could better support Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s argument?
During the hearings in the Camp Zeist court, long before the verdict was reached, I heard a US citizen suggesting that “Libya should be nuked" and one of us was asked by another American how we (UK relatives) could bear to sit near the Libyan relatives in the public gallery. Was that a kind of school-bus racism or merely evidence of a presumption of as yet unproven guilt?
The US Lockerbie relatives I have met are decent folk with similar objectives in life to ours. Some have become friends and have been most generous on many occasions, welcoming us into their homes and sharing research with us. They deserve closure on their grief, just as we do in the UK, and it is very sad that some now seem unable to consider for themselves whether Megrahi really was guilty, preferring blindly to accept what their culture is telling them, a culture which seems to some of us, and I suspect to Cardinal O’Brien, to steer a path perilously close to revenge under the mantra of God’s Own Country “kicking ass”. But is the right ass being kicked, or is that of secondary importance in US culture?
It is as the cardinal says: there is a clash of cultures and, like him, I want to live in a culture capable of compassion. I believe that the Church of Scotland also supported compassionate release of Megrahi.
A culture tending towards vengeance will always find widespread support, because the lust for revenge is latent in us all. When I first went to see Colonel Gaddafi to ask that he allow his people to be tried in a Scottish court, I knew I did not want the alleged culprits to be tried in the US, where I felt sure that, given even a minimum of evidence, they would be found guilty and executed. Like the cardinal, I did not want that option to be available.
I also believed that Scottish justice was among the fairest available. I still believe that if Scotland can set up or allow a vehicle for the full objective re-examination of the evidence to be created, she could redeem her reputation for fairness. We must remember that our own Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found after more than three years of careful scrutiny that this trial may have been a miscarriage of justice.
History would look askance upon a country that left so great a question unresolved, and with such evidence available. The world might be more credulous of the result if Scotland allows a distinguished, expert and uninvolved set of examiners to address the issues. Yes, Scottish heads might roll, and to applaud that risks being vengeful, but there are still the entities of right and wrong in this world, and the Scottish nation has existed long enough to know the difference.
There was evidence at Camp Zeist that made me and many others doubt Megrahi’s guilt. Much more has accumulated since, and the total of it now strains credulity beyond breaking point. Not only that, some of the evidence which has accumulated, even since the SCCRC made its comments, suggests connivance in the perversion of justice. More detailed allegations should await a fully empowered re-assessment.
Rightly, Scotland accepted the burden of bringing justice down upon the heads of those responsible. For that privilege, it must now bear the responsibility for making sure that the verdict reached is sound, and seen to be sound, beyond any reasonable doubt.
The world owes us all the truth, and we need a system of justice in which we can have faith.
Dr Jim Swire
Cardinal Keith O’Brien has not missed and hit the wall. He is absolutely correct to attack the US “culture of vengeance” and support Scottish officials’ decision not to go crawling to America.
While every sympathy must go out to the bereaved families in America, it sometimes tends to be forgotten that Scotland also suffered greatly in the Lockerbie atrocity. I fully agree with Dr Jim Swire when he says we should look for justice rather than vengeance.
The night before the US led invasion of Iraq, I recall a telephone conversation I had with an American friend when we spoke of our horror of what was to come. We agreed that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but as my friend sadly remarked: “America has to blame someone, and anyone will do.”
Ruth Marr
Monday, 9 August 2010
Lockerbie documentary to screen tonight on STV
Almost one year on from Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi’s early release on compassionate grounds, STV is this evening to air a special programme on the disaster and the international investigation which led to the Libyan being convicted of the murder of 270 people.
The Lockerbie Bomber: Sent Home to Die - being transmitted at 9pm this evening - also reports outrage in the US over the Scottish Government’s controversial decision to allow Megrahi to return home to Libya to die. (...)
Narrated by Kaye Adams, one of the first reporters at the scene, this programme speaks to key people involved and charts the story of the Lockerbie disaster from that horrific night on 21 December 1988, through to the Scottish Government’s decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August last year.
The programme features rarely-seen archive news footage and new interviews with the relatives of the victims, Scottish and American detectives who led the investigation and cancer specialists who examined Megrahi prior to his release, and Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill who defends his controversial decision.
[From a report on the Allmedia Scotland website. The hour-long programme starts at 21.00.
The STV News website has a report advertising tonight's programme headlined "MacAskill: No backroom deal behind Lockerbie bomber's release".]
The Lockerbie Bomber: Sent Home to Die - being transmitted at 9pm this evening - also reports outrage in the US over the Scottish Government’s controversial decision to allow Megrahi to return home to Libya to die. (...)
Narrated by Kaye Adams, one of the first reporters at the scene, this programme speaks to key people involved and charts the story of the Lockerbie disaster from that horrific night on 21 December 1988, through to the Scottish Government’s decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August last year.
The programme features rarely-seen archive news footage and new interviews with the relatives of the victims, Scottish and American detectives who led the investigation and cancer specialists who examined Megrahi prior to his release, and Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill who defends his controversial decision.
[From a report on the Allmedia Scotland website. The hour-long programme starts at 21.00.
The STV News website has a report advertising tonight's programme headlined "MacAskill: No backroom deal behind Lockerbie bomber's release".]
Cardinal faces backlash for rebuking US on Megrahi release
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
The leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland is facing criticism after he attacked America’s “culture of vengeance” and defended the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing on compassionate grounds.
In a dramatic intervention into the furious row over the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, Cardinal Keith O’Brien said that Americans should assess their own judicial decisions before criticising those of other countries.
He compared America to Iran and Saudi Arabia because of its use of the death penalty, and defended Scottish officials’ decision to refuse to appear before American senators investigating the circumstances of the release. Scottish politicians should not go “crawling” to America, he said.
A spokesman for Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey senator heading the investigation into Megrahi’s release, last night declined to comment, but Frank Duggan, spokesman for the Victims of Pan Am 103 group, criticised the Cardinal’s intervention.
He said: “I’m a Catholic and we know that the Catholic Church has long opposed the death penalty.
“But I think the bishop here should stick to his knitting, and render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” (...)
Experts said yesterday that the calculation should have taken into account further treatment for the Libyan’s prostate cancer. Medics who made the prediction should have recognised that planned chemotherapy would extend his life, according to a group of doctors.
One of them, Professor Roger Kirby, director of the Prostate Centre in London, said that the Scottish Government had made a mistake because it did not “ask the right questions to the right people”.
But a Government spokesman said that Dr Andrew Fraser, Director of Health and Care for the Scottish Prison Service, who provided the clinical assessment of Megrahi’s condition for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, was “a professional of unimpeachable integrity”.
He added: “Dr Fraser drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists in coming to his clinical assessment that a three-month prognosis was a reasonable estimate for Megrahi – it was not based on the opinion of any one doctor. These specialists included two consultant oncologists, two consultant urologists and a number of other specialists, including a palliative care team, and Mr Megrahi’s primary care physician.”
Last night Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the tragedy, said America was too keen to “kick ass” without asking if they had got the right man, and said he was glad Megrahi had never faced the death penalty.
Dr Swire said that he agreed with the Cardinal’s comments.
“We should look for justice rather than vengeance,” he said. “I agree with him in criticising that culture.
“American culture is bordering on the search for vengeance and the desire to kick ass, without asking if it is the right ass to kick.
“We have always said that we need to know the truth and would like to extract something good from this, and vengeance is a disgraceful way for a self-confessed Christian nation to behave.”
“What about the question of whether Megrahi is guilty or not?” he added.
However, he said he was not criticising the American relatives of Lockerbie victims and that it would be wrong to say they belonged to that culture.
Dr Swire also revealed that he had written a letter to the Cardinal praising him for speaking out but warning him that with such comments “you have to expect flak, unfortunately”.
Mr MacAskill, who made the decision to release Megrahi, described the Cardinal’s comments as “considered” and “thoughtful”.
[The Scotsman's report on the issue can be read here.]
The leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland is facing criticism after he attacked America’s “culture of vengeance” and defended the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing on compassionate grounds.
In a dramatic intervention into the furious row over the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, Cardinal Keith O’Brien said that Americans should assess their own judicial decisions before criticising those of other countries.
He compared America to Iran and Saudi Arabia because of its use of the death penalty, and defended Scottish officials’ decision to refuse to appear before American senators investigating the circumstances of the release. Scottish politicians should not go “crawling” to America, he said.
A spokesman for Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey senator heading the investigation into Megrahi’s release, last night declined to comment, but Frank Duggan, spokesman for the Victims of Pan Am 103 group, criticised the Cardinal’s intervention.
He said: “I’m a Catholic and we know that the Catholic Church has long opposed the death penalty.
“But I think the bishop here should stick to his knitting, and render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” (...)
Experts said yesterday that the calculation should have taken into account further treatment for the Libyan’s prostate cancer. Medics who made the prediction should have recognised that planned chemotherapy would extend his life, according to a group of doctors.
One of them, Professor Roger Kirby, director of the Prostate Centre in London, said that the Scottish Government had made a mistake because it did not “ask the right questions to the right people”.
But a Government spokesman said that Dr Andrew Fraser, Director of Health and Care for the Scottish Prison Service, who provided the clinical assessment of Megrahi’s condition for Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, was “a professional of unimpeachable integrity”.
He added: “Dr Fraser drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists in coming to his clinical assessment that a three-month prognosis was a reasonable estimate for Megrahi – it was not based on the opinion of any one doctor. These specialists included two consultant oncologists, two consultant urologists and a number of other specialists, including a palliative care team, and Mr Megrahi’s primary care physician.”
Last night Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the tragedy, said America was too keen to “kick ass” without asking if they had got the right man, and said he was glad Megrahi had never faced the death penalty.
Dr Swire said that he agreed with the Cardinal’s comments.
“We should look for justice rather than vengeance,” he said. “I agree with him in criticising that culture.
“American culture is bordering on the search for vengeance and the desire to kick ass, without asking if it is the right ass to kick.
“We have always said that we need to know the truth and would like to extract something good from this, and vengeance is a disgraceful way for a self-confessed Christian nation to behave.”
“What about the question of whether Megrahi is guilty or not?” he added.
However, he said he was not criticising the American relatives of Lockerbie victims and that it would be wrong to say they belonged to that culture.
Dr Swire also revealed that he had written a letter to the Cardinal praising him for speaking out but warning him that with such comments “you have to expect flak, unfortunately”.
Mr MacAskill, who made the decision to release Megrahi, described the Cardinal’s comments as “considered” and “thoughtful”.
[The Scotsman's report on the issue can be read here.]
It remains crucial we find out the truth of the atrocity that happened at Lockerbie
[This is the heading over three letters published in today's edition of The Herald. They read as follows:]
Fred McManus reminds us all of the terrible scenes facing police officers in the immediate aftermath of the Lockerbie atrocity (“Still haunted by the scale of the slaughter at Lockerbie”, Letters, August 7).
I am sure those scenes will remain with them for ever. I must, however, disagree that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s guilt was proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
Information now in the public domain, and which has been around for some time, suggests otherwise. I would highly recommend the writings of Professor Robert Black, a man who is undoubtedly part of the establishment, but who makes abundantly clear his absolute shame over the manner in which the original trial was conducted. He is not alone. [Note by RB: If I was ever part of the establishment, which is doubtful, my membership has been revoked because of my activities following the Lockerbie trial.]
Mr McManus says Megrahi is guilty “until the due process of law shows otherwise”. That is why I would question the reluctance of so many politicians, and the judiciary, to set that due process of law in motion and examine properly the doubts raised about the original conviction. Megrahi dropped his appeal but we weren’t told why or what pressures were applied. But the myth, that with the appeal gone we cannot now investigate, is simply that: a myth.
What is true is this: if the political will to investigate existed in Scotland, at Westminster or within the Scottish judiciary then we would indeed get an investigation. The attempts by all of these groups to obstruct such an investigation surely represent a heinous crime too.
Mr McManus concedes that perhaps the verdict is unsafe but, bizarrely, emphasises only perhaps. I’m not sure what point he seeks to make. Is he saying it doesn’t matter that a man could have been wrongly convicted? I do hope not.
For in a crime of this enormity, surely there can be no room for doubt. That is what politicians, the judiciary and, yes, those police officers who had to go to the site and witness unimaginable horror should believe. They should want to know we convicted the right man – and if there are doubts, they, more than anyone, should want those doubts tested publicly and thoroughly in the interests of justice.
Jo Greenhorn
As a one-time ambulance driver, I can only be at the threshold of appreciation of the horrendous trauma experienced by former police inspector Fred McManus and his team of unsung heroes in front-line emergency duties after the Lockerbie bombing. He and his colleagues have my utmost gratitude and respect for work which is unthinkingly taken for granted by us all, and consequently I can empathise with his views on Megrahi.
However, I am one of those who believes there is a prima facie case that he was not responsible and that it also appears he did not act alone.
I fear that until questions being asked by Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the atrocity, and others are openly addressed, this wound to our communal sense of justice will fester into infinity. I also believe that grieving families are not best served by American and British Governments avoiding important outstanding issues while allowing focus to centre on the development of a relatively minor storm over the nature of terminal cancer and on compassionate release. (...)
George Devlin
I was greatly heartened to read Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s open letter admonishing the vengeance culture in the United States which feeds an emotion that can never be quenched and which proves that to be the case with recent hounding of the Scottish Parliament and the UK to answer for the release of Megrahi.
I hope that the plain speaking of both the cardinal and Prime Minister David Cameron heralds a new age of international relationships built on truth and justice, painful though that may be. Our lives depend upon it.
Janet Cunningham
[The Herald also runs an editorial headed "Inquiry needed into release of Megrahi" which contains the following]:
Next week it will be exactly one year since Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, was released from prison on compassionate grounds.
This newspaper said at the time that it was the right decision to release Megrahi and we still believe that.
However, it is clear that the longer Megrahi survives, the more problematic it becomes to defend a release on compassionate grounds and the easier it becomes for critics of the decision, particularly in America, to suggest there were other factors at play, most notably the trading interests of BP. (...)
If Mr MacAskill did all he reasonably could to establish good medical grounds for the release of Megrahi, we wholeheartedly support his decision. However, it may be that the only way to establish this for certain – and to rebuff those critics in America who have so angered Cardinal O’Brien – is to hold a full, public inquiry into the decision to release Megrahi.
It is something we have consistently called for and the case for one remains strong.
[The leader writer's memory is at fault. The Herald has never in the past called for a public inquiry into Megrahi's release. What the newspaper has called for is a full independent inquiry into the Lockerbie case, including Mr Megrahi's conviction.]
Fred McManus reminds us all of the terrible scenes facing police officers in the immediate aftermath of the Lockerbie atrocity (“Still haunted by the scale of the slaughter at Lockerbie”, Letters, August 7).
I am sure those scenes will remain with them for ever. I must, however, disagree that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s guilt was proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
Information now in the public domain, and which has been around for some time, suggests otherwise. I would highly recommend the writings of Professor Robert Black, a man who is undoubtedly part of the establishment, but who makes abundantly clear his absolute shame over the manner in which the original trial was conducted. He is not alone. [Note by RB: If I was ever part of the establishment, which is doubtful, my membership has been revoked because of my activities following the Lockerbie trial.]
Mr McManus says Megrahi is guilty “until the due process of law shows otherwise”. That is why I would question the reluctance of so many politicians, and the judiciary, to set that due process of law in motion and examine properly the doubts raised about the original conviction. Megrahi dropped his appeal but we weren’t told why or what pressures were applied. But the myth, that with the appeal gone we cannot now investigate, is simply that: a myth.
What is true is this: if the political will to investigate existed in Scotland, at Westminster or within the Scottish judiciary then we would indeed get an investigation. The attempts by all of these groups to obstruct such an investigation surely represent a heinous crime too.
Mr McManus concedes that perhaps the verdict is unsafe but, bizarrely, emphasises only perhaps. I’m not sure what point he seeks to make. Is he saying it doesn’t matter that a man could have been wrongly convicted? I do hope not.
For in a crime of this enormity, surely there can be no room for doubt. That is what politicians, the judiciary and, yes, those police officers who had to go to the site and witness unimaginable horror should believe. They should want to know we convicted the right man – and if there are doubts, they, more than anyone, should want those doubts tested publicly and thoroughly in the interests of justice.
Jo Greenhorn
As a one-time ambulance driver, I can only be at the threshold of appreciation of the horrendous trauma experienced by former police inspector Fred McManus and his team of unsung heroes in front-line emergency duties after the Lockerbie bombing. He and his colleagues have my utmost gratitude and respect for work which is unthinkingly taken for granted by us all, and consequently I can empathise with his views on Megrahi.
However, I am one of those who believes there is a prima facie case that he was not responsible and that it also appears he did not act alone.
I fear that until questions being asked by Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter died in the atrocity, and others are openly addressed, this wound to our communal sense of justice will fester into infinity. I also believe that grieving families are not best served by American and British Governments avoiding important outstanding issues while allowing focus to centre on the development of a relatively minor storm over the nature of terminal cancer and on compassionate release. (...)
George Devlin
I was greatly heartened to read Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s open letter admonishing the vengeance culture in the United States which feeds an emotion that can never be quenched and which proves that to be the case with recent hounding of the Scottish Parliament and the UK to answer for the release of Megrahi.
I hope that the plain speaking of both the cardinal and Prime Minister David Cameron heralds a new age of international relationships built on truth and justice, painful though that may be. Our lives depend upon it.
Janet Cunningham
[The Herald also runs an editorial headed "Inquiry needed into release of Megrahi" which contains the following]:
Next week it will be exactly one year since Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, was released from prison on compassionate grounds.
This newspaper said at the time that it was the right decision to release Megrahi and we still believe that.
However, it is clear that the longer Megrahi survives, the more problematic it becomes to defend a release on compassionate grounds and the easier it becomes for critics of the decision, particularly in America, to suggest there were other factors at play, most notably the trading interests of BP. (...)
If Mr MacAskill did all he reasonably could to establish good medical grounds for the release of Megrahi, we wholeheartedly support his decision. However, it may be that the only way to establish this for certain – and to rebuff those critics in America who have so angered Cardinal O’Brien – is to hold a full, public inquiry into the decision to release Megrahi.
It is something we have consistently called for and the case for one remains strong.
[The leader writer's memory is at fault. The Herald has never in the past called for a public inquiry into Megrahi's release. What the newspaper has called for is a full independent inquiry into the Lockerbie case, including Mr Megrahi's conviction.]
Fringe play tells Swire story
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Herald. The following are excerpts:]
An Edinburgh Fringe play about the Lockerbie bombing has sparked poignant memories for Dr Jim Swire on whose original writings it is based.
Dr Swire and his wife Jane were haunted by the soundtrack of Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, in which their daughter Flora sings some of her favourite songs as a child.
She wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and study medicine at Cambridge University, but died along with 269 others in the Lockerbie disaster of December 21, 1988, the day before her 24th birthday.
Dr Swire, 74, said: “My daughter was a free spirit and her death was such a waste of all the energy and effort she put into life.
“It was so hard at first. We were numb with grief and misery. Often I wondered if we could survive the experience – but we have.
“At the time, it was impossible to relate words like terrorism and bombs to our beautiful daughter.
“Lockerbie never goes away. It is like a big heavy overcoat that you never seem quite able to take off.
“When you’ve got children and something bad happens to one of them, you torture yourself with thoughts about how much they might have suffered.
“Every parent wants to prevent their child from suffering and we couldn’t because we weren’t there. That is what really hurts.”
The new play by David Benson is based on an unpublished book, Moving the World, written by Dr Swire and Peter Biddulph.
It covers the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and his co-accused Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah at at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands as well as Dr Swire’s belief that Megrahi was wrongly convicted and his continued efforts to find out the truth about the disaster.
Dr Swire described his campaign as “an outlet not just for my grief but my intense rage as well, at the way we relatives were treated”. (...)
Speaking about the play, Dr Swire said: “David Benson did very well. The play is very accurate and I think it will have a big impact on Edinburgh audiences.”
His wife, Jane, added: “It was very good; a thumbnail sketch of Jim’s campaign to get at the truth. It’s just that I have never before had to face somebody playing the part of my husband on a stage.
“It was a strange experience, but then nothing after Lockerbie has ever been normal.”
Lockerbie: Unfinished Business is at the Gilded Balloon until August 20.
[The Washington Post has published the Associated Press news agency report about the play that was mentioned on this blog a few days ago.]
An Edinburgh Fringe play about the Lockerbie bombing has sparked poignant memories for Dr Jim Swire on whose original writings it is based.
Dr Swire and his wife Jane were haunted by the soundtrack of Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, in which their daughter Flora sings some of her favourite songs as a child.
She wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and study medicine at Cambridge University, but died along with 269 others in the Lockerbie disaster of December 21, 1988, the day before her 24th birthday.
Dr Swire, 74, said: “My daughter was a free spirit and her death was such a waste of all the energy and effort she put into life.
“It was so hard at first. We were numb with grief and misery. Often I wondered if we could survive the experience – but we have.
“At the time, it was impossible to relate words like terrorism and bombs to our beautiful daughter.
“Lockerbie never goes away. It is like a big heavy overcoat that you never seem quite able to take off.
“When you’ve got children and something bad happens to one of them, you torture yourself with thoughts about how much they might have suffered.
“Every parent wants to prevent their child from suffering and we couldn’t because we weren’t there. That is what really hurts.”
The new play by David Benson is based on an unpublished book, Moving the World, written by Dr Swire and Peter Biddulph.
It covers the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and his co-accused Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah at at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands as well as Dr Swire’s belief that Megrahi was wrongly convicted and his continued efforts to find out the truth about the disaster.
Dr Swire described his campaign as “an outlet not just for my grief but my intense rage as well, at the way we relatives were treated”. (...)
Speaking about the play, Dr Swire said: “David Benson did very well. The play is very accurate and I think it will have a big impact on Edinburgh audiences.”
His wife, Jane, added: “It was very good; a thumbnail sketch of Jim’s campaign to get at the truth. It’s just that I have never before had to face somebody playing the part of my husband on a stage.
“It was a strange experience, but then nothing after Lockerbie has ever been normal.”
Lockerbie: Unfinished Business is at the Gilded Balloon until August 20.
[The Washington Post has published the Associated Press news agency report about the play that was mentioned on this blog a few days ago.]
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Cardinal in attack on US 'vengeance'
[This is the headline over the front page lead in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday. It reads in part:]
The leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics has hit out at America's "culture of vengeance" and told US Senators they have no right to question the standards of Scotland's justice system over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
In an extraordinary intervention into the row over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, Cardinal Keith O'Brien condemns the American justice system and highlights a "conveyor belt of killing" in its use of the death penalty.
He accuses the American system of being based on "vengeance and retribution" and says he is glad to live in a country where "justice is tempered with mercy". He also likens America's executions to those in China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran and highlights those countries' poor human rights records.
He says the US Senators seeking to question Scottish and British government ministers should instead "direct their gaze inwards". (...)
O'Brien's comments, contained in an article in today's Scotland on Sunday, come after US senators revealed plans last month to hold an inquiry into the release of Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie atrocity, in which 270 people were killed.
The Cardinal says today he backs the decision by First Minister Alex Salmond not to send his ministers to the US for a Senate hearing, saying that Scottish ministers are answerable to Scots and not to the US. He then turns attention back onto the American system of justice. He writes:
"Perhaps the consciences of some Americans, especially members of the US Senate, should be stirred by the ways in which justice is administered in so many of their own states."
Quoting the Bible, he adds: "Perhaps it is time for them to cast out the beam from their own eye before seeking the mote in their brothers'. Perhaps they should direct their gaze inwards, rather than scrutinising the working of the Scottish justice system." (...)
While not explicitly endorsing the decision to release Megrahi, O'Brien offers a clear hint he believes Scottish ministers were right to do just that. "It is in the midst of such inhuman barbarism (shown by Megrahi] that we must act to affirm our own humanity," he writes. "They may plunge to the depths of human conduct but we will not follow them."
He adds: "I believe that only God can forgive and show ultimate compassion to those who commit terrible crimes and I would rather live in a country where justice is tempered by mercy than exist in one where vengeance and retribution are the norm." (...)
Frank Duggan, spokesman of the Victims of Pan Am 103 group, which represents the views of US relatives, said: "I'm a Catholic and we know that the Catholic Church has long opposed the death penalty. But I think the bishop here should stick to his knitting, and render unto Caeser's what is Caesar's."
[The report on the Cardinal's views on the BBC News website can be read here and that on the Newsnet Scotland website can be read here. Dr Jim Swire's reaction to Cardinal O'Brien's article, as contained in an e-mail to me, is as follows:]
When I first went to see Colonel Gaddafi in 1991, a week or two after Mr Al-Megrahi and Kalifa Fhima were first publicly accused of this terrible crime, it was to ask the Colonel to allow his citizens to appear in front of a Scottish court.
Why? There were three reasons: first, even then I felt sure that if tried in the USA both men would be judicially executed by a system which operates perilously close to the doctrine that might is right, and that truth can be bought.
Second, that for those deemed to be the enemy of 'God's Own Country' the quality of the evidence against them might be less important than the opportunity for vengeance to be seen to be done: that death should be delivered summarily. Unfortunately the notion that God is on your country's side has led men to commit so much malevolent slaughter down the ages that the whole name of religion can be criticised.
The third reason was that I believed the Scottish system of justice to be among the fairest. Those who seem to lust for this man's death should look not at the details of why he was released, but the question of whether he really was guilty. It was Scotland's SCCRC which studied his case and decided that the trial might have been a miscarriage of justice, and it is Scotland which has not yet found a way to follow up that finding with a vehicle allowing re-examination of the whole case, under the rigour of our law.
We must find that way now. Scotland must have an honest second look at the evidence, accommodating all the new evidence that has arisen since Megrahi's trial. Unless she does, our reputation for fairness and compassion will be destroyed at the bar of history. Our overall adherence to the need to prove cases 'beyond reasonable doubt' must be re-established.
Meanwhile let us join with the Cardinal in giving thanks to our God if we admit One, that this man, who may well be innocent, has not been judicially executed in our names.
[The following is from a report on the website of The Guardian:]
A spokesman for the Scottish justice secretary welcomed O'Brien's "thoughtful and considered contribution". He said: "The justice secretary … granted compassionate release to al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds alone, based on the rules and regulations of Scots law. And as the cardinal correctly observes, it is to the Scottish parliament and people that Holyrood ministers are accountable, not the US Senate."
The leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics has hit out at America's "culture of vengeance" and told US Senators they have no right to question the standards of Scotland's justice system over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
In an extraordinary intervention into the row over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, Cardinal Keith O'Brien condemns the American justice system and highlights a "conveyor belt of killing" in its use of the death penalty.
He accuses the American system of being based on "vengeance and retribution" and says he is glad to live in a country where "justice is tempered with mercy". He also likens America's executions to those in China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran and highlights those countries' poor human rights records.
He says the US Senators seeking to question Scottish and British government ministers should instead "direct their gaze inwards". (...)
O'Brien's comments, contained in an article in today's Scotland on Sunday, come after US senators revealed plans last month to hold an inquiry into the release of Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie atrocity, in which 270 people were killed.
The Cardinal says today he backs the decision by First Minister Alex Salmond not to send his ministers to the US for a Senate hearing, saying that Scottish ministers are answerable to Scots and not to the US. He then turns attention back onto the American system of justice. He writes:
"Perhaps the consciences of some Americans, especially members of the US Senate, should be stirred by the ways in which justice is administered in so many of their own states."
Quoting the Bible, he adds: "Perhaps it is time for them to cast out the beam from their own eye before seeking the mote in their brothers'. Perhaps they should direct their gaze inwards, rather than scrutinising the working of the Scottish justice system." (...)
While not explicitly endorsing the decision to release Megrahi, O'Brien offers a clear hint he believes Scottish ministers were right to do just that. "It is in the midst of such inhuman barbarism (shown by Megrahi] that we must act to affirm our own humanity," he writes. "They may plunge to the depths of human conduct but we will not follow them."
He adds: "I believe that only God can forgive and show ultimate compassion to those who commit terrible crimes and I would rather live in a country where justice is tempered by mercy than exist in one where vengeance and retribution are the norm." (...)
Frank Duggan, spokesman of the Victims of Pan Am 103 group, which represents the views of US relatives, said: "I'm a Catholic and we know that the Catholic Church has long opposed the death penalty. But I think the bishop here should stick to his knitting, and render unto Caeser's what is Caesar's."
[The report on the Cardinal's views on the BBC News website can be read here and that on the Newsnet Scotland website can be read here. Dr Jim Swire's reaction to Cardinal O'Brien's article, as contained in an e-mail to me, is as follows:]
When I first went to see Colonel Gaddafi in 1991, a week or two after Mr Al-Megrahi and Kalifa Fhima were first publicly accused of this terrible crime, it was to ask the Colonel to allow his citizens to appear in front of a Scottish court.
Why? There were three reasons: first, even then I felt sure that if tried in the USA both men would be judicially executed by a system which operates perilously close to the doctrine that might is right, and that truth can be bought.
Second, that for those deemed to be the enemy of 'God's Own Country' the quality of the evidence against them might be less important than the opportunity for vengeance to be seen to be done: that death should be delivered summarily. Unfortunately the notion that God is on your country's side has led men to commit so much malevolent slaughter down the ages that the whole name of religion can be criticised.
The third reason was that I believed the Scottish system of justice to be among the fairest. Those who seem to lust for this man's death should look not at the details of why he was released, but the question of whether he really was guilty. It was Scotland's SCCRC which studied his case and decided that the trial might have been a miscarriage of justice, and it is Scotland which has not yet found a way to follow up that finding with a vehicle allowing re-examination of the whole case, under the rigour of our law.
We must find that way now. Scotland must have an honest second look at the evidence, accommodating all the new evidence that has arisen since Megrahi's trial. Unless she does, our reputation for fairness and compassion will be destroyed at the bar of history. Our overall adherence to the need to prove cases 'beyond reasonable doubt' must be re-established.
Meanwhile let us join with the Cardinal in giving thanks to our God if we admit One, that this man, who may well be innocent, has not been judicially executed in our names.
[The following is from a report on the website of The Guardian:]
A spokesman for the Scottish justice secretary welcomed O'Brien's "thoughtful and considered contribution". He said: "The justice secretary … granted compassionate release to al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds alone, based on the rules and regulations of Scots law. And as the cardinal correctly observes, it is to the Scottish parliament and people that Holyrood ministers are accountable, not the US Senate."
Saturday, 7 August 2010
My family's Lockerbie rage
[This is the headline over an article in The Daily Beast by Brian Flynn, brother of one of the US victims of the destruction of Pan Am 103. It reads in part:]
During the next two decades [after the disaster] , we lobbied to hold responsible the companies that could have prevented the attack: Pan Am was convicted of gross negligence and willful misconduct. My mother served on both presidential commissions that investigated the causes of the bombing and improved airline security, and I helped her as a researcher. We lobbied Congress to enact the Iran Libya Sanctions Act, which ultimately put enough pressure on Libya to hand over the indicted Libyan agents who perpetrated the crime. And, we sat in that courtroom listening to months of damning—and conclusive—evidence. Eventually, Abdel Baset al Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. And although he would be the only man to pay for the atrocity, we felt in a small way that some justice had been served.
Little did we know, we would be betrayed. Out of the blue, I got a phone call from the British Embassy, telling me that Megrahi was being considered for release. Days later, we found ourselves in a surreal argument via videoconference with the minister of justice in Scotland. We thought we made inarguable points: “You cannot release an unrepentant mass murder for any reason, especially to the people and government that paid him to do it,” I told him. “Releasing him would make a mockery of the justice system and embolden terrorists around the world. It doesn’t matter if he is sick. He can get palliative care in prison like the dozens of people that die of natural causes in Scottish prisons every year.”
How could they not know that Megrahi would receive a hero’s welcome in Libya? How could they not suspect that he might miraculously be cured and live for years?
When Megrahi was released days later, this blatant act of betrayal robbed us of that one shred of justice. It made us feel that our decades of effort were worth nothing. As we have now learned, the Scots did it for the least surprising reason: money. The deal seemed to have been a perfect storm of ulterior motives: BP was directly lobbying the UK government to get Megrahi released so they could win oil contracts while, at the same time, Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, was traveling around the Middle East raising capital from sovereign wealth funds there. One of them, the Qatar Investment Authority, directly stated that it would “not be good for Megrahi to die in prison.” This was two months before we met with the Scottish minister.
Since Megrahi’s release, we have demanded to see proof that he was to die in three months. It seemed all too convenient and, as we now know, the reason given was inherently fraudulent. The Scottish justice department ignored specific medical evidence about life expectancy. In fact, not ONE cancer specialist consulted would give the three-month death sentence required for compassionate release.
So, it seems I am not done pursuing justice for my older brother as people continue to dishonor the 270 victims. Our mission now is to hold these charlatans responsible. The Scottish ministers should be forced to resign, and then tried on corruption charges. Megrahi should be returned to prison.
Daniel Webster said justice is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Through the years, I often thought: Am I really just seeking revenge, veiled in a cloak called justice? But I don’t think so. Justice—in and of itself—is worthy of relentless pursuit. If we let convicted mass murderers out of prison, or allow our public servants to sell prison releases, then we tear at that ligament apart, and threaten the very fabric of civilized society itself.
[It is sad to see such a passionate article ignoring completely the fundamental aspects of justice (a) that accused persons should be convicted only where the evidence warrants it and where evidence that might cast doubt on guilt is not withheld by the prosecution and (b) that when miscarriages of justice occur and are detected they should be speedily rectified.]
During the next two decades [after the disaster] , we lobbied to hold responsible the companies that could have prevented the attack: Pan Am was convicted of gross negligence and willful misconduct. My mother served on both presidential commissions that investigated the causes of the bombing and improved airline security, and I helped her as a researcher. We lobbied Congress to enact the Iran Libya Sanctions Act, which ultimately put enough pressure on Libya to hand over the indicted Libyan agents who perpetrated the crime. And, we sat in that courtroom listening to months of damning—and conclusive—evidence. Eventually, Abdel Baset al Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. And although he would be the only man to pay for the atrocity, we felt in a small way that some justice had been served.
Little did we know, we would be betrayed. Out of the blue, I got a phone call from the British Embassy, telling me that Megrahi was being considered for release. Days later, we found ourselves in a surreal argument via videoconference with the minister of justice in Scotland. We thought we made inarguable points: “You cannot release an unrepentant mass murder for any reason, especially to the people and government that paid him to do it,” I told him. “Releasing him would make a mockery of the justice system and embolden terrorists around the world. It doesn’t matter if he is sick. He can get palliative care in prison like the dozens of people that die of natural causes in Scottish prisons every year.”
How could they not know that Megrahi would receive a hero’s welcome in Libya? How could they not suspect that he might miraculously be cured and live for years?
When Megrahi was released days later, this blatant act of betrayal robbed us of that one shred of justice. It made us feel that our decades of effort were worth nothing. As we have now learned, the Scots did it for the least surprising reason: money. The deal seemed to have been a perfect storm of ulterior motives: BP was directly lobbying the UK government to get Megrahi released so they could win oil contracts while, at the same time, Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, was traveling around the Middle East raising capital from sovereign wealth funds there. One of them, the Qatar Investment Authority, directly stated that it would “not be good for Megrahi to die in prison.” This was two months before we met with the Scottish minister.
Since Megrahi’s release, we have demanded to see proof that he was to die in three months. It seemed all too convenient and, as we now know, the reason given was inherently fraudulent. The Scottish justice department ignored specific medical evidence about life expectancy. In fact, not ONE cancer specialist consulted would give the three-month death sentence required for compassionate release.
So, it seems I am not done pursuing justice for my older brother as people continue to dishonor the 270 victims. Our mission now is to hold these charlatans responsible. The Scottish ministers should be forced to resign, and then tried on corruption charges. Megrahi should be returned to prison.
Daniel Webster said justice is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Through the years, I often thought: Am I really just seeking revenge, veiled in a cloak called justice? But I don’t think so. Justice—in and of itself—is worthy of relentless pursuit. If we let convicted mass murderers out of prison, or allow our public servants to sell prison releases, then we tear at that ligament apart, and threaten the very fabric of civilized society itself.
[It is sad to see such a passionate article ignoring completely the fundamental aspects of justice (a) that accused persons should be convicted only where the evidence warrants it and where evidence that might cast doubt on guilt is not withheld by the prosecution and (b) that when miscarriages of justice occur and are detected they should be speedily rectified.]
Still haunted by the scale of slaughter that was perpetrated at Lockerbie
[This is the headline over a letter from Fred McManus in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
I was a police inspector serving in Strathclyde Police B Division when the Lockerbie mass murder occurred. Strathclyde mobilised huge resources to support Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary in the management and investigation of this outrage.
Officers were sent from each territorial division of the force, but inspectors initially went only from alternate divisions – A, C, E, G and so forth – and so I thought that I would play no part in the massive operation. I was wrong.
Several weeks into the inquiry, it was decided that the bodies of each of the victims, including their individual limbs, should undergo X-ray examination. Two teams of police officers were established to facilitate this. I was in charge of the night shift team, working from 6pm-6am, and spent three nights in the Lockerbie temporary mortuary opening the caskets, removing the bodies and washing them before each was taken for X-ray examination, after which they were replaced in their caskets with all due dignity and respect.
My team of experienced officers were initially visibly distraught but got on with the job, as good police officers do. I was particularly impressed by the courage and stoicism of the radiographers, some of whom were young girls who looked about 19, in carrying out their duties.
Out of respect to all concerned I will not go into detail, but I will say that the experience left me with the passionate view, as strong today as it was almost 23 years ago, that those responsible had forfeited the right to be considered human and to be treated accordingly. I regard myself as a decent, compassionate man, but to this day I firmly believe that whoever perpetrated this atrocious mass murder, made even more disgusting by the cowardly means of its slaughter, should be afforded no compassion whatsoever, Christian or otherwise.
At this moment in time, as upon his release, the one person who stands convicted, proven beyond reasonable doubt in a Scottish High Court, as guilty of this inhuman act is Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. Perhaps, and I emphasise perhaps, as some of your readers clearly believe, there is a prima facie case that he was not responsible. It also appears self-evident that he did not act alone. But until the due process of law shows otherwise, he is guilty of this most heinous and horrible mass murder. Having seen at first hand, and in graphic detail, the effects of Megrahi’s wicked criminality, I share the Americans’ outrage that he should have been released for any reason other than vindication under that due process.
I was a police inspector serving in Strathclyde Police B Division when the Lockerbie mass murder occurred. Strathclyde mobilised huge resources to support Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary in the management and investigation of this outrage.
Officers were sent from each territorial division of the force, but inspectors initially went only from alternate divisions – A, C, E, G and so forth – and so I thought that I would play no part in the massive operation. I was wrong.
Several weeks into the inquiry, it was decided that the bodies of each of the victims, including their individual limbs, should undergo X-ray examination. Two teams of police officers were established to facilitate this. I was in charge of the night shift team, working from 6pm-6am, and spent three nights in the Lockerbie temporary mortuary opening the caskets, removing the bodies and washing them before each was taken for X-ray examination, after which they were replaced in their caskets with all due dignity and respect.
My team of experienced officers were initially visibly distraught but got on with the job, as good police officers do. I was particularly impressed by the courage and stoicism of the radiographers, some of whom were young girls who looked about 19, in carrying out their duties.
Out of respect to all concerned I will not go into detail, but I will say that the experience left me with the passionate view, as strong today as it was almost 23 years ago, that those responsible had forfeited the right to be considered human and to be treated accordingly. I regard myself as a decent, compassionate man, but to this day I firmly believe that whoever perpetrated this atrocious mass murder, made even more disgusting by the cowardly means of its slaughter, should be afforded no compassion whatsoever, Christian or otherwise.
At this moment in time, as upon his release, the one person who stands convicted, proven beyond reasonable doubt in a Scottish High Court, as guilty of this inhuman act is Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. Perhaps, and I emphasise perhaps, as some of your readers clearly believe, there is a prima facie case that he was not responsible. It also appears self-evident that he did not act alone. But until the due process of law shows otherwise, he is guilty of this most heinous and horrible mass murder. Having seen at first hand, and in graphic detail, the effects of Megrahi’s wicked criminality, I share the Americans’ outrage that he should have been released for any reason other than vindication under that due process.
US senators demand more info from UK on Lockerbie
[This is the headline over a report that has just been published on the Reuters news agency website. It reads in part:]
Four US senators have written to the Foreign Secretary curtly demanding more information to help clear up the "public pall" over the release of the Lockerbie bomber to Libya.
In an accusing tone rarely used with the United States' closest ally, the senators said it appeared British trade interests with Libya had "won out over justice" in last year's release of the man convicted of the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.
"It would behoove all of us if you can bring greater transparency to these matters," the four senators told Foreign Secretary William Hague.
They asked whether the previous Labour government could have prevented Abdel Basset al-Megrahi from being returned to Libya after he was released by Scottish authorities on compassionate grounds because of ill health. (...)
The letter was signed by the two US senators from New Jersey, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, as well as the two senators from New York, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillebrand. All four are Democrats. (...)
Hague wrote a seven-page letter to the Senate last month saying there was no evidence BP was connected to the release.
But the senators said comments by former Foreign Secretary David Miliband -- quoted in Hague's letter -- as well as a letter to Scottish authorities from the Libyan British Business Council urging Megrahi's release, showed trade considerations and British government attitudes may have been influential.
Miliband, who worked for the previous Labour government, was quoted as saying that "British interests, including those of UK nationals, British businesses and possibly security cooperation, would be damaged -- perhaps badly -- if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison." (...)
A British diplomat said the letter would be given the same consideration as earlier correspondence from the senators, but "we've already released quite a lot of information."
[Having been the recipients of a bloody nose from Wee Eck, the Bash Street Kids have now turned their attention to Oor Wullie. Note for non-Scottish readers: this is an arcane Scottish cultural reference.
There is a report in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph headed "Lockerbie bomber freed over 'low mood'". The story that follows does not, of course, justify the inflammatory headline. We can expect more such gutter journalism as the anniversary of Abdelbaset Megrahi's release approaches.]
Four US senators have written to the Foreign Secretary curtly demanding more information to help clear up the "public pall" over the release of the Lockerbie bomber to Libya.
In an accusing tone rarely used with the United States' closest ally, the senators said it appeared British trade interests with Libya had "won out over justice" in last year's release of the man convicted of the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.
"It would behoove all of us if you can bring greater transparency to these matters," the four senators told Foreign Secretary William Hague.
They asked whether the previous Labour government could have prevented Abdel Basset al-Megrahi from being returned to Libya after he was released by Scottish authorities on compassionate grounds because of ill health. (...)
The letter was signed by the two US senators from New Jersey, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, as well as the two senators from New York, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillebrand. All four are Democrats. (...)
Hague wrote a seven-page letter to the Senate last month saying there was no evidence BP was connected to the release.
But the senators said comments by former Foreign Secretary David Miliband -- quoted in Hague's letter -- as well as a letter to Scottish authorities from the Libyan British Business Council urging Megrahi's release, showed trade considerations and British government attitudes may have been influential.
Miliband, who worked for the previous Labour government, was quoted as saying that "British interests, including those of UK nationals, British businesses and possibly security cooperation, would be damaged -- perhaps badly -- if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison." (...)
A British diplomat said the letter would be given the same consideration as earlier correspondence from the senators, but "we've already released quite a lot of information."
[Having been the recipients of a bloody nose from Wee Eck, the Bash Street Kids have now turned their attention to Oor Wullie. Note for non-Scottish readers: this is an arcane Scottish cultural reference.
There is a report in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph headed "Lockerbie bomber freed over 'low mood'". The story that follows does not, of course, justify the inflammatory headline. We can expect more such gutter journalism as the anniversary of Abdelbaset Megrahi's release approaches.]
Friday, 6 August 2010
US House of Representatives Resolution
[The following resolution was introduced into the US House of Representatives on 30 July by Representatives Maffei (D, N-Y), Lee (R, N-Y) and McMahon (D, N-Y). It was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.]
RESOLUTION
Encouraging the United Kingdom to investigate British Petroleum (BP) for foreign corrupt practices.
Whereas Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was convicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people, including 189 United States citizens;
Whereas the Scottish courts released al-Megrahi from prison on August 20, 2009, under the understanding that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer;
Whereas the Scottish authorities have never clarified why al-Megrahi could not receive humane treatment while still in captivity;
Whereas al-Megrahi seems to have well outlived his original diagnosis;
Whereas it is very troubling that al-Megrahi received a hero’s welcome to his home country of Libya;
Whereas British Petroleum (BP) admitted on July 15, 2010, that a delayed prisoner-transfer between Britain and Libya ‘could have a negative impact’ on BP’s oil negotiations;
Whereas there are allegations that BP inappropriately attempted to affect the Scottish Government’s decision and possibly even the doctor’s diagnosis; and
Whereas al-Megrahi’s release sends an incredibly offensive message to the families that lost loved ones on Pan Am Flight 103:
Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives encourages the United Kingdom to investigate British Petroleum (BP) for foreign corrupt practices.
[It is hugely entertaining to see politicians jumping onto a bandwagon just as its wheels come off.]
RESOLUTION
Encouraging the United Kingdom to investigate British Petroleum (BP) for foreign corrupt practices.
Whereas Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was convicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people, including 189 United States citizens;
Whereas the Scottish courts released al-Megrahi from prison on August 20, 2009, under the understanding that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer;
Whereas the Scottish authorities have never clarified why al-Megrahi could not receive humane treatment while still in captivity;
Whereas al-Megrahi seems to have well outlived his original diagnosis;
Whereas it is very troubling that al-Megrahi received a hero’s welcome to his home country of Libya;
Whereas British Petroleum (BP) admitted on July 15, 2010, that a delayed prisoner-transfer between Britain and Libya ‘could have a negative impact’ on BP’s oil negotiations;
Whereas there are allegations that BP inappropriately attempted to affect the Scottish Government’s decision and possibly even the doctor’s diagnosis; and
Whereas al-Megrahi’s release sends an incredibly offensive message to the families that lost loved ones on Pan Am Flight 103:
Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives encourages the United Kingdom to investigate British Petroleum (BP) for foreign corrupt practices.
[It is hugely entertaining to see politicians jumping onto a bandwagon just as its wheels come off.]
Lockerbie play draws attention at Edinburgh Fringe
[This is the headline over a recent Associated Press news agency report. It reads in part:]
Amid the creative mayhem, organizers are bracing to see whether ticket sales will be hurt by Britain's battered economic state. And one attention-grabbing show is asking audiences to revisit a raw and divisive subject: the Lockerbie bombing.
The attack on a New York-bound jet over a small town, just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from here, killed 270 people, many of them American.
The tragedy moved back into the headlines a year ago, when the Scottish government released the Libyan convicted of the bombing, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. His release infuriated relatives of many Lockerbie victims, especially those in the United States.
Al-Megrahi, who has cancer, was freed on compassionate grounds after doctors said he had three months to live. A year later he is still alive, which ensures the wound remains open.
It's also back in the news because a group of US senators is investigating whether BP-linked oil deals in Libya had any connection to al-Megrahi's release.
Writer-performer David Benson was at the Fringe last year when al-Megrahi was freed and an international furor erupted. It inspired him to write the one-man show Lockerbie: Unfinished Business.
The play is based on an unpublished memoir by Jim Swire, a British doctor who lost his daughter in the attack. Swire has become well known in Britain for his campaign to prove that al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted and that evidence points to Iranian-backed Palestinian militants as the perpetrators.
"He is engaged in a single-minded mission to get justice for his daughter, Flora," said Benson, a Fringe veteran who has created plays about Noel Coward, Samuel Johnson and the death of Princess Diana. "He can't rest knowing the men who did it are still at large."
Benson knows many disagree with Swire, but hopes dissenters will come see the show, which offers both a — somewhat patchy — lesson in murky recent history and a moving depiction of Swire's restrained, intense, very British grief — he hides his pain with a stiff upper lip, but at memories of his daughter it quivers.
"It's not just about the evidence," Benson said. "It's about his personal tragedy, his loss and how he's dealt with his grief."
Amid the creative mayhem, organizers are bracing to see whether ticket sales will be hurt by Britain's battered economic state. And one attention-grabbing show is asking audiences to revisit a raw and divisive subject: the Lockerbie bombing.
The attack on a New York-bound jet over a small town, just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from here, killed 270 people, many of them American.
The tragedy moved back into the headlines a year ago, when the Scottish government released the Libyan convicted of the bombing, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. His release infuriated relatives of many Lockerbie victims, especially those in the United States.
Al-Megrahi, who has cancer, was freed on compassionate grounds after doctors said he had three months to live. A year later he is still alive, which ensures the wound remains open.
It's also back in the news because a group of US senators is investigating whether BP-linked oil deals in Libya had any connection to al-Megrahi's release.
Writer-performer David Benson was at the Fringe last year when al-Megrahi was freed and an international furor erupted. It inspired him to write the one-man show Lockerbie: Unfinished Business.
The play is based on an unpublished memoir by Jim Swire, a British doctor who lost his daughter in the attack. Swire has become well known in Britain for his campaign to prove that al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted and that evidence points to Iranian-backed Palestinian militants as the perpetrators.
"He is engaged in a single-minded mission to get justice for his daughter, Flora," said Benson, a Fringe veteran who has created plays about Noel Coward, Samuel Johnson and the death of Princess Diana. "He can't rest knowing the men who did it are still at large."
Benson knows many disagree with Swire, but hopes dissenters will come see the show, which offers both a — somewhat patchy — lesson in murky recent history and a moving depiction of Swire's restrained, intense, very British grief — he hides his pain with a stiff upper lip, but at memories of his daughter it quivers.
"It's not just about the evidence," Benson said. "It's about his personal tragedy, his loss and how he's dealt with his grief."
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