Why as LibDems we oppose our party’s stance on freed Libyan

[The following are two letters published in today's edition of The Herald.]

1.

I wish to state, as a Liberal Democrat, that I think Kenny MacAskill's decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on licence was right. I believe Mr MacAskill when he says he was not party to any political or commercial deal, and that he did not seek to persuade Megrahi to withdraw his second appeal. I think his visit to Greenock Prison was quixotic and probably unnecessary, but I do not see it as a crucial matter.

I am deeply concerned that neither the Scottish Government nor the three main opposition parties seems to mind what happens about the questions left unresolved by the abandonment of Megrahi's appeal. If the opposition leaders are truly interested in justice for the relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie atrocity, they should pay more attention to the views of Dr Jim Swire, who plainly wishes to see answers to the questions raised by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC).

If the Conservatives want to ask the Prime Minister a really challenging question about this affair, they should ask him why the Foreign Secretary repeatedly acted to hinder the progress of Megrahi's second appeal, and why he was so anxious to keep out of the proceedings the papers he said were vital to the security interests of the UK and an unnamed foreign power.

When the Scottish Parliament debates this affair next Wednesday, I for one will be very disappointed if the main opposition parties do not address the matter of how the doubts raised by the SCCRC are to be resolved. It is clear that none of the governments involved wishes to see these questions addressed.

The SCCRC, in effect, said the Court of Appeal should consider whether the circumstantial evidence on which Megrahi was convicted was reliable. We do not know what the court would have ruled. If it had quashed the conviction, there would have had to be an investigation into how unreliable evidence had been brought into the original trial. Was it just an unfortunate accident? Or was it deliberately procured? These are appalling questions. It is leaving them unresolved that brings shame on Scotland.

Dr Christopher Mason, Liberal Democrat Glasgow City Councillor, City Chambers, George Square, Glasgow.

2.

As a Liberal Democrat party member, I may be breaking ranks, but I can only answer in the affirmative the core question about the political or quasi-judicial decision of Kenny MacAskill to release Megrahi; that is, did Mr MacAskill take the right decision and for the right reason (compassion)?

The only criticisms I have of Mr MacAskill are the advance publicity given to his visit to Greenock Prison and his suggestion that Megrahi's cancer is a sentence "imposed by a higher power", a notion repugnant to me as a strict ethical monotheist and, therefore, as a liberal in all things. However, such are side issues in relation to the core question.

As for criticisms from the US, I would suggest that successive regimes there are in no position to challenge the Scottish justice system. The US federally and in 37 of its states continues to practise the barbarity of capital punishment. There is also a gun culture and a lack of even-handedness in the administration of justice. The US regimes have also condoned the use of torture in interrogating terrorist suspects, a procedure backed, in a recent opinion poll, by a significant percentage of US citizens, including a majority of Republican voters.

I would suggest that priority should now be given to answering the many unanswered questions about the mass murder at Lockerbie in 1988, given the view of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission that there may have been a miscarriage of justice in Megrahi's case. And I would support suggestions that decisions on prisoner release should be taken judicially rather than politically or quasi-judicially.

Dr Alexander S Waugh, Banchory, Kincardineshire.

[Letters from Americans, expressing diverse views on Abdelbaset Megrahi's repatriation, can be read here.

The letters on the subject in The Scotsman (largely supportive of Kenny MacAskill's decision) can be read here.]