Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Megrahi doubts

[Two of the letters that appear in The Scotsman today under this heading read as follows:]
Bearing in mind Tony Gauci’s insistence that the man who purchased clothing in his shop was about 50 years old, over 6ft tall, heavily built and dark-skinned (Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was 36, 5ft 8in tall, of medium build and light-skinned), Clive Fairweather’s doubts over his identification of Megrahi (your report, 21 May) are well founded.
The “evidence” linking Megrahi to the bombing was sparse, none of it stands up to close scrutiny and without Gauci’s testimony there would surely be no case to answer.
I find it incomprehensible that anyone who has studied the Lockerbie case in any detail can swallow the guilty verdict.
Robert Woodcock
Bob MacDougall (Letters, 22 May) refers to Mr Megrahi getting a hero’s welcome on his return to Libya.
My impression was that it was mainly a family welcome, with little state participation apart from the presence of Colonel Gaddafi’s son. Clans and extended families seem less important now in Scotland than they once were, but remain significant in Libya. Mention is made of Saltire flags at that welcome but not of how they got there. There was a suggestion at the time that they were provided by the British Embassy.
We may never know the truth of that, or the motive if true. There is much which we may never know about this case, but we may hope that Mr Megrahi’s appeal may be re-opened, for the sake of his family and friends but also for the sake of the reputation of Scotland’s legal system.
David Stevenson


[Interesting commentaries following the death of Megrahi are to be found on the Business Insider website (Burying the “Lockerbie bomber”—and the truth) and on the Aljazeera website (Megrahi's death - An end to a century of mistrust?)]

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