[This is the headline over a report in today's Scottish edition of The Sunday Times. It reads in part:]
Kenny MacAskill rejected legal advice from his own officials when he freed the Lockerbie bomber, new documents reveal.
Evidence uncovered six months after the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi shows the justice minister ruled out transferring the bomber to a jail in Libya, despite being told by government lawyers he was entitled to do so.
MacAskill said at the time he was prevented from using a prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) because of an agreement struck between the British and American governments ahead of Megrahi’s trial in 1999 that, if convicted, he would serve his entire sentence in Scotland.
However, a memo to MacAskill on June 15 last year from George Burgess, the deputy director of the Scottish government’s criminal justice department, said that the agreement may have been intended to reassure Libya prior to handing over the Lockerbie suspects that they would not be jailed in America.
Burgess advised that the assurance “may be of less significance now” because a subsequent prisoner transfer deal had been agreed between Britain and Libya and “contrary to the views expressed by US officials and others, may not be sufficient reason alone to prevent transfer under a prisoner transfer agreement”.
In a second paper to MacAskill on August 14, when referring to US expectations that anyone found guilty would be expected to serve their sentence in Scotland, Burgess said: “It is doubtful that this would constitute a legally enforceable ‘legitimate expectation’.”
[Dr George Burgess is an administrative civil servant, not a lawyer. His views on matters of law are no more relevant than those of any other layman. Kenny MacAskill is a lawyer, and has access to professional legal advice from Scottish Government lawyers. This is yet another tendentious non-story from The Sunday Times.]
Privately, I am sure that people in positions of power in the US are as delighted at Mr Megrahi's return to Libya as everyone else, as had the case returned to the Scottish Appeal Court, despite its defects summarised by Professor Koechler, they would have had to release him, however mealy-mouthed they would have been about it.
ReplyDeleteWhen is the Scottish judicial system going to start facing up to the fact it was totally screwed by the various US elements of analysis, government and justice: the FBI, NSC, CIA, White House, DoJ, SD and uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.
MISSION LOCKERBIE:
ReplyDeleteLibyen und Mr Abdelbaset Al Megrahi hat nachweislich nichts zu tun mit der Explosion von Flug PanAm 103, somit war Mr. Megrahi über 8 Jahre unschuldig in einem schottischen Gefängnis (miscarriage of justice) !!!
Die Frage über die frühzeitige Freilassung ist somit eine Farce..
Scottish Secretary of Justice Mr. Ken MacAskill soll endlich, wie versprochenen, die Dokumente der SCCRC offenlegen um die Wahrheit und die Ehre Mr. Megrahi's und Libyen's wieder herzustellen.
Only a computer "Babylon" translation german/english:
Libya and Mr Abdelbaset Al Megrahi have as can be prove nothing to do with the explosion of flight PanAm 103, thus were Mr. Megrahi over 8 years innocently in a Scottish prison (miscarriage of justice)!!!
The question over the early release is thus a farce…
Scottish Secretary of justice Mr. Ken MacAskill is finally, as promised, the documents of the SCCRC reveals around the truth and the honour Mr. Megrahi' s and Libyen' to repair s.
At the end the "Lockerbie-hunters" become the hunted >>> please visit our website: www.lockerbie.ch
Edwin and Mahnaz Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland
How was the memo dated 15 June 2009 from civil servant, Dr George Burgess, to Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, 'uncovered'?
ReplyDeleteOr the second Burgess 'revelation' dated 14 August 2009?
If the documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information request, that's fine.
If not, who's been leaking ministerial advice?
I understand Mr MacAskill sought clarification from the UK Government about this agreement but clarification was not forthcoming.
ReplyDeleteMr MacAskill receives written confidential advice in two memos from a senior civil servant in his department.
ReplyDeleteThe Sunday Times manages to 'uncover' the documents.
How come?
We live in interesting times. Until Scotland got devolution, all civil servants were "national", in that they responded to a British polily. Now we have something different: British civil servants, answerable to Whitehall and Scottish answerable to what we used to call "St Anderwes House", but we don't yet have a moniker, so call it Leith where the body of the beast is, if not its heid.
ReplyDeleteShould we curse ourselves for "living n interesting times".
What is St Anderwes House called now?
ReplyDeleteThose of us with a weary and long understanding of things Libyan may well like to take another look at what is behind the latest Swiss-Libyan imbroglio. It all seems so familiar.
ReplyDeleteServants of Gadafy's son took a complaint about him and his wife to the Swiss authorities, where they were staying, who on investigation imprisoned them both for a short while with lots of diplomatic repercussions. North African and Arab rulers tend to have a high-handed approach to rules that in this or any other European country are regarded as basic human rights, and it is not so very long since Saudi Arabian rulers were accused of importing their slaves here, expecting them to put up with the conditions that endured at home.
This complaint is not historically uncommon. In the late C18 American slave-owners had to be careful of bringing what they regarded as their property to England, lest the courts set it free.
Be that as it may. A Swiss businessman, an employee of ABB, seems to have surrendered to a short jail term in Libya, having been holed up in the Swiss Embassy there for nearly a year. On the Libyan side, one wonders why. Is this part of a long term grievance with the principal of a Swiss company who may have suggested to the CIA that a certain Mr Megrahi was responsible for Lockerbie?
This is the sort of reciprocation the Libyans often resort to. There are many more examples. When the Italian president recently went to the country he was confronted with some sort of manifestation about the Libyans (Senoussis or Senussis) that the Mussolini regime had killed in the 1930s during their conquest of the country. When the French sought compensation for the passengers of its aircraft killed by the Libyan State (UT-772) they were asked for reciprocal compensation for three Libyan pilots killed during a Libyan aircraft attack on the Chadean capital, during a war where the Libyans sought to incorporate the northern third of Chad into Libya. And who has forgotten the tale of the Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for introducing Aids into a Libyan hospital, scientifically and provably the result of poor hygienic practices and not attributable to him?
Part II of my comments
ReplyDeleteIt is almost as if the Libyans have a desire for underhand action, likely to be misunderstood. For every action of support against an oppressive regime (say apartheid South Africa) there is a corresponding action against, say, the iniquitous British in Northern Ireland, which in the end, the Colonel abandoned. You cannot really run a foreign policy on the basis that all the demands of the oppressed and disadvantaged are equally legitimate, with makes up so much of the Mathaba movement's claims.
I suppose it makes for life's rich tapestry. But when the oil, and fossil water of Libya run out, don't expect the rest of the world to rush to Libya's aid. There is actually a different way, if any of the regime thought about it.