[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Sunday Telegraph. It reads in part:]
The Foreign Affairs Committee says it is time to reconsider the term "the special relationship", which it complains is overused by politicians and the media, serving "simultaneously to devalue its meaning and to raise unrealistic expectations about the benefits the relationship can deliver to the UK." (...)
Heather Conley and Reginald Dale from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies told a hearing: "There is clear evidence that Europe (and thus Britain) is much less important to the Obama administration than it was to previous US administrations, and the Obama administration appears to be more interested in what it can get out of the special relationship than in the relationship itself."
The release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi by the Scottish executive was strongly criticised by the US, and Hillary Clinton's call for Britain to sit down with Argentina to "resolve the issues" around the Falklands was not appreciated in London.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former ambassador to the United Nations, told the Committee that when the UK has disagreements with the United States in official business, "we play out those disagreements, we argue with the United States, in private.
"We tend not to argue in public unless public explanation is necessary or we are having a great row about something that cannot be kept out of the public domain," he said.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Was the Lockerbie conviction unsafe?
This is the title of a Flickr Photo Download by David McCandless which reviews the evidence that led to the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi. There are a number of inaccuracies, but it is a useful summary. It can be viewed here.
Calls for cartoon to be banned after Lockerbie sketch
[This is the headline over a report on the STV News website. It reads in part:]
An American cartoon show has been met with outrage after showing a sketch about the victims of the Lockerbie bombing.
The Family Guy episode, which has already been aired in the USA, includes a nursery rhyme describing babies and body parts falling from the sky.
The mother of one of the Lockerbie victims has described the sequence as “horrible and painful”. (...)
The Family Guy series is watched by millions of people around the world, and has the same cult status as The Simpsons and South Park.
Christine Grahame MSP said: “I’ve spoken to rescuers who were there at the time, and for them it’s still so horrible that they can’t talk about it.
“So I think that it’s disgraceful. It should never have been played.”
The sketch has also drawn criticism from those who live in the Dumfries and Galloway town. Lockerbie resident Maxwell Kerr said: “I think it’s disgusting.”
Amidst calls for the episode to be banned, BBC3, which airs The Family Guy in the UK, said that it is currently reviewing whether or not it would show the episode.
An American cartoon show has been met with outrage after showing a sketch about the victims of the Lockerbie bombing.
The Family Guy episode, which has already been aired in the USA, includes a nursery rhyme describing babies and body parts falling from the sky.
The mother of one of the Lockerbie victims has described the sequence as “horrible and painful”. (...)
The Family Guy series is watched by millions of people around the world, and has the same cult status as The Simpsons and South Park.
Christine Grahame MSP said: “I’ve spoken to rescuers who were there at the time, and for them it’s still so horrible that they can’t talk about it.
“So I think that it’s disgraceful. It should never have been played.”
The sketch has also drawn criticism from those who live in the Dumfries and Galloway town. Lockerbie resident Maxwell Kerr said: “I think it’s disgusting.”
Amidst calls for the episode to be banned, BBC3, which airs The Family Guy in the UK, said that it is currently reviewing whether or not it would show the episode.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi on the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi
I asked him about Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, the man convicted in the Pan Am 103 atrocity, in which 270 were killed, when the flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. The Scottish Judiciary released Megrahi in August on compassionate grounds [RB: the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, who released Megrahi, is a minister in the Scottish Government, not a member of the Scottish judiciary], as doctors gave him just three months to live. Seven months later he is still alive. Gaddafi said, “The Americans shouldn’t be angry because this man is innocent, I believe he is innocent. Second, it was not a Libyan decision to release him. They should go to the UK and discuss the issue with the UK and not Libya. And the third issue--he is very sick. This is a fact. But he is still alive. You should ask God about that.”
[From an interview by Amy Kellogg with Saif Gaddafi, reported in the Live Shots section of the Fox News website. In a later article on the same website, Ms Kellogg writes:]
Though Libya renounced its weapons of mass destruction program back in 2003, a U.S. Embassy didn’t open in Tripoli until late 2008. That was after Libya paid compensation for the families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103. (...)
Despite the normalization of relations, there is much historic baggage weighing on the new relationship, including painful memories of the 1988 Pan Am 103 incident, and for the Libyans, the bombing of Leader Moammar Gaddafi’s home by the Americans in 1986.
When a Scottish court released the man convicted in the Pan Am 103 bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, on compassionate grounds, as doctors determined he had just three months left to live, many Americans reacted angrily, as it brought back painful memories. U.S. Ambassador Gene Cretz acknowledges that.
“There’s no doubt that the impact of that picture of Mr. Megrahi being greeted here struck at the very heart of American sensitivities not only in Washington but throughout our country, because it was a reminder of a very very painful past and a present that continues to be painful for the families who lost relatives and friends in that incident and others.”
I asked Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader about the release of Megrahi, who is still alive seven months after his release.
"Americans shouldn't be angry because this man is innocent. I believe he is innocent. Second, it was not a Libyan decision to release him. They should go to the UK and discuss the issue with the UK not Libya. The third issue, he's very sick. This is a fact. That he is still live you should ask God."
Many Libyans make the distinction between Libya’s “accepting responsibility” for the bombing, and actually being guilty of the atrocity, considering Megrahi the fall guy. Yet a Scottish court convicted Megrahi and that fact has not changed. [RB: But an official Scottish body, the SCCRC, has said that that conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice.]
Cretz said even though it was a Scottish court that released him [RB: it was a Scottish Government minister, not a Scottish court], that act caused some damage to U.S.-Libya relations.
“It was a setback no doubt it did impact on relations and this is one of the reasons that we are trying to brick by brick , day by day, discussion by discussion, lay down a path of normalization with this country. So that after 30 years of estrangement and hostility we are able to begin to find a language to talk to each other and to also make each other aware of our cultural and political imperatives and sensitivities.”
[From an interview by Amy Kellogg with Saif Gaddafi, reported in the Live Shots section of the Fox News website. In a later article on the same website, Ms Kellogg writes:]
Though Libya renounced its weapons of mass destruction program back in 2003, a U.S. Embassy didn’t open in Tripoli until late 2008. That was after Libya paid compensation for the families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103. (...)
Despite the normalization of relations, there is much historic baggage weighing on the new relationship, including painful memories of the 1988 Pan Am 103 incident, and for the Libyans, the bombing of Leader Moammar Gaddafi’s home by the Americans in 1986.
When a Scottish court released the man convicted in the Pan Am 103 bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, on compassionate grounds, as doctors determined he had just three months left to live, many Americans reacted angrily, as it brought back painful memories. U.S. Ambassador Gene Cretz acknowledges that.
“There’s no doubt that the impact of that picture of Mr. Megrahi being greeted here struck at the very heart of American sensitivities not only in Washington but throughout our country, because it was a reminder of a very very painful past and a present that continues to be painful for the families who lost relatives and friends in that incident and others.”
I asked Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader about the release of Megrahi, who is still alive seven months after his release.
"Americans shouldn't be angry because this man is innocent. I believe he is innocent. Second, it was not a Libyan decision to release him. They should go to the UK and discuss the issue with the UK not Libya. The third issue, he's very sick. This is a fact. That he is still live you should ask God."
Many Libyans make the distinction between Libya’s “accepting responsibility” for the bombing, and actually being guilty of the atrocity, considering Megrahi the fall guy. Yet a Scottish court convicted Megrahi and that fact has not changed. [RB: But an official Scottish body, the SCCRC, has said that that conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice.]
Cretz said even though it was a Scottish court that released him [RB: it was a Scottish Government minister, not a Scottish court], that act caused some damage to U.S.-Libya relations.
“It was a setback no doubt it did impact on relations and this is one of the reasons that we are trying to brick by brick , day by day, discussion by discussion, lay down a path of normalization with this country. So that after 30 years of estrangement and hostility we are able to begin to find a language to talk to each other and to also make each other aware of our cultural and political imperatives and sensitivities.”
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Libya’s feting of Megrahi insults us all
[This is the headline over a column in today's edition of The Sunday Times by regular contributor, Gillian Bowditch. It reads in part:]
When it comes to the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the quality of mercy is looking very strained indeed. Far from dropping like the gentle rain from heaven, it has become a whirlwind which looks set to wreak havoc on the career of the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.
The only man convicted of Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity, which led to the deaths of 270 people in 1988, was released on compassionate grounds last August on the basis that he was close to death. Doctors reportedly gave him three months to live.
Like just about everything else to do with the Lockerbie disaster, this has proved unreliable. Seven months on, Megrahi is still with us — a useful propaganda tool for a Libyan government and a potent symbol in the Middle East of Britain’s wholly inconsistent approach to terrorism. (...)
Megrahi is reputed to have become a national hero in his native land. Mothers are naming their newborn children after him and 30,000 well-wishers are said to have filed past his death bed in the manner of ghoulish medieval pilgrims. Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s son Saif, has said the convicted man is “in a good condition”. Treatment with the anti-cancer drug Taxotere is said to be prolonging his life and there is speculation he could live for years. (...)
With the exception of the families of the victims, nobody emerges from this saga well. The Scottish government has attempted to limp lamely onto the high moral ground, citing compassion as a reason for Megrahi’s release. But by allowing a single minister with only two years’ experience of government to take a unilateral decision on an issue which was of international importance, it has not only damaged relations with the US, it has appeared politically naive, inexperienced in international affairs and irresponsible.
It was not that long ago that the British government was portraying Gaddafi as an erratic and dangerous madman. So for the Scottish government to hand over a convicted terrorist to Gaddafi, without preconditions, defies belief. Far from the “three months to live” prognosis, based on the testimony of a single prison doctor and used by the government to justify its controversial decision at the time, Professor Karol Sikora, the cancer expert hired by the Libyan government, who saw Megrahi once, says his report stated that “on the balance of probabilities, there was a 50% chance he would die in three months”. (...)
The Scottish justice system has also been damaged by the debacle, with claims from a UN observer, among others, of a massive miscarriage of justice. Megrahi served eight-and-a-half years of his lifetime sentence handed down at a special hearing in the Netherlands. He chose not to give evidence in his own defence. He was in the middle of an appeal to clear his name at the time of his release, an appeal which had the potential to embarrass the British authorities and America’s FBI and which was dropped just before he was freed.
Had MacAskill had the best interests of Scottish justice in mind, he would have kept Megrahi in Scotland for the appeal. Had the chemotherapy offered to him there been given to him here, we would now be several months into the appeal and closer to the elusive truth. Unless the evidence is tested in a court of law, Megrahi’s protestations are worth little. A full-scale public inquiry would be costly. But justice has not been done nor has it been seen to be done.
The decision of the Scottish parliament’s justice committee last month to consider in private a revised draft report on the decision to free Megrahi, is symptomatic of a lack of transparency. If Megrahi is as well as Saif Gaddafi makes out, he should return to Scotland and clear his name properly. He has experienced mercy; it is time the dead and their relatives experienced real justice.
When it comes to the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the quality of mercy is looking very strained indeed. Far from dropping like the gentle rain from heaven, it has become a whirlwind which looks set to wreak havoc on the career of the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.
The only man convicted of Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity, which led to the deaths of 270 people in 1988, was released on compassionate grounds last August on the basis that he was close to death. Doctors reportedly gave him three months to live.
Like just about everything else to do with the Lockerbie disaster, this has proved unreliable. Seven months on, Megrahi is still with us — a useful propaganda tool for a Libyan government and a potent symbol in the Middle East of Britain’s wholly inconsistent approach to terrorism. (...)
Megrahi is reputed to have become a national hero in his native land. Mothers are naming their newborn children after him and 30,000 well-wishers are said to have filed past his death bed in the manner of ghoulish medieval pilgrims. Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s son Saif, has said the convicted man is “in a good condition”. Treatment with the anti-cancer drug Taxotere is said to be prolonging his life and there is speculation he could live for years. (...)
With the exception of the families of the victims, nobody emerges from this saga well. The Scottish government has attempted to limp lamely onto the high moral ground, citing compassion as a reason for Megrahi’s release. But by allowing a single minister with only two years’ experience of government to take a unilateral decision on an issue which was of international importance, it has not only damaged relations with the US, it has appeared politically naive, inexperienced in international affairs and irresponsible.
It was not that long ago that the British government was portraying Gaddafi as an erratic and dangerous madman. So for the Scottish government to hand over a convicted terrorist to Gaddafi, without preconditions, defies belief. Far from the “three months to live” prognosis, based on the testimony of a single prison doctor and used by the government to justify its controversial decision at the time, Professor Karol Sikora, the cancer expert hired by the Libyan government, who saw Megrahi once, says his report stated that “on the balance of probabilities, there was a 50% chance he would die in three months”. (...)
The Scottish justice system has also been damaged by the debacle, with claims from a UN observer, among others, of a massive miscarriage of justice. Megrahi served eight-and-a-half years of his lifetime sentence handed down at a special hearing in the Netherlands. He chose not to give evidence in his own defence. He was in the middle of an appeal to clear his name at the time of his release, an appeal which had the potential to embarrass the British authorities and America’s FBI and which was dropped just before he was freed.
Had MacAskill had the best interests of Scottish justice in mind, he would have kept Megrahi in Scotland for the appeal. Had the chemotherapy offered to him there been given to him here, we would now be several months into the appeal and closer to the elusive truth. Unless the evidence is tested in a court of law, Megrahi’s protestations are worth little. A full-scale public inquiry would be costly. But justice has not been done nor has it been seen to be done.
The decision of the Scottish parliament’s justice committee last month to consider in private a revised draft report on the decision to free Megrahi, is symptomatic of a lack of transparency. If Megrahi is as well as Saif Gaddafi makes out, he should return to Scotland and clear his name properly. He has experienced mercy; it is time the dead and their relatives experienced real justice.
Corrupted compassion: freed to die at home, Pan Am bomber is living large
[This is the headline over an opinion piece in today's edition of the New York Daily News. It reads as follows:]
Seven months after his release from a Scottish prison on "compassionate" grounds, and four months after prostate cancer was supposed to have killed him, Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has had a miraculous turn for the better, death-wise. How very surprising.
Saif Khadafy, son of Libyan dictator Moammar, confirmed that Megrahi, convicted of murdering 270 people at Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is doing much better, thank you very much.
Megrahi "was sick and was released for humanitarian reasons, and was soon in better health and in a good condition," Khadafy told an Arab newspaper. "His future is now in God's hands."
In the same interview, Khadafy is reported to have admitted that securing release for the now "greatly improved" Megrahi had dominated trade talks - including oil deals - between Libya and the government of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Not that there was ever much doubt that amoral commercial opportunism had sent Megrahi home to a triumphant welcome in Tripoli. He has been lionized ever since as a hero, a national treasure. Parents have named newborns after him, and 30,000 well-wishers reportedly have visited the swank villa in the Libyan capital where he lives.
Perhaps Megrahi is, in fact, ill. He generally appears for photos in a wheelchair or assisted by oxygen tubes. So what? If treatments, such as chemotherapy, are extending his life, they should have been administered in the prison to which he was condemned. His days of comfort are a stain that Brown will never escape.
[This article appears just a day after the publication of an editorial to similar effect in the New York Post. Could it be that someone is orchestrating a media campaign?]
Seven months after his release from a Scottish prison on "compassionate" grounds, and four months after prostate cancer was supposed to have killed him, Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has had a miraculous turn for the better, death-wise. How very surprising.
Saif Khadafy, son of Libyan dictator Moammar, confirmed that Megrahi, convicted of murdering 270 people at Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is doing much better, thank you very much.
Megrahi "was sick and was released for humanitarian reasons, and was soon in better health and in a good condition," Khadafy told an Arab newspaper. "His future is now in God's hands."
In the same interview, Khadafy is reported to have admitted that securing release for the now "greatly improved" Megrahi had dominated trade talks - including oil deals - between Libya and the government of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Not that there was ever much doubt that amoral commercial opportunism had sent Megrahi home to a triumphant welcome in Tripoli. He has been lionized ever since as a hero, a national treasure. Parents have named newborns after him, and 30,000 well-wishers reportedly have visited the swank villa in the Libyan capital where he lives.
Perhaps Megrahi is, in fact, ill. He generally appears for photos in a wheelchair or assisted by oxygen tubes. So what? If treatments, such as chemotherapy, are extending his life, they should have been administered in the prison to which he was condemned. His days of comfort are a stain that Brown will never escape.
[This article appears just a day after the publication of an editorial to similar effect in the New York Post. Could it be that someone is orchestrating a media campaign?]
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray hits out at the SNP
The revelation that the Lockerbie bomber could have another five years to live has prompted renewed criticism over his release.
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray said it proved the medical evidence which Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s release was based on was flawed.
The party’s chief at Holyrood was speaking during a visit to Dumfries on Monday [15 March] (...)
The attack ... was aimed at the Scottish Government whose Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill approved the release of al-Megrahi in August last year.
Then, Mr McAskill said the killer had only had three months to live.
But at the weekend it was reported that the bomber, now at home in Libya, is taking a cancer-fighting drug which may prolong his life by five years.
Mr Gray told the Standard: “We have asked some pretty serious questions about the medical evidence and it does now look as if the basis of the medical evidence wasn’t particularly sound.
“I felt the decision to release him was wrong for a whole number of reasons but largely because Kenny MacAskill was required by the Scottish justice system, in considering the application for release, yes to take account of how long al-Megrahi was considered to have to live but he was also required to take account of the severity of the crime and the sentence which had been passed.
“It was the worst crime that anybody had ever been convicted of in Scotland and Al Megrahi had served less than a third of a 27-year sentence.
“So to my mind, guessing how long someone has to live is never going to be an exact science but in my view whether he got that right or as it turns out he got it wrong, nonetheless, those two other factors meant the decision should have been not to release al-Megrahi.”
[From a report in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, one of the local newspapers serving the area that includes Lockerbie.]
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray said it proved the medical evidence which Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s release was based on was flawed.
The party’s chief at Holyrood was speaking during a visit to Dumfries on Monday [15 March] (...)
The attack ... was aimed at the Scottish Government whose Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill approved the release of al-Megrahi in August last year.
Then, Mr McAskill said the killer had only had three months to live.
But at the weekend it was reported that the bomber, now at home in Libya, is taking a cancer-fighting drug which may prolong his life by five years.
Mr Gray told the Standard: “We have asked some pretty serious questions about the medical evidence and it does now look as if the basis of the medical evidence wasn’t particularly sound.
“I felt the decision to release him was wrong for a whole number of reasons but largely because Kenny MacAskill was required by the Scottish justice system, in considering the application for release, yes to take account of how long al-Megrahi was considered to have to live but he was also required to take account of the severity of the crime and the sentence which had been passed.
“It was the worst crime that anybody had ever been convicted of in Scotland and Al Megrahi had served less than a third of a 27-year sentence.
“So to my mind, guessing how long someone has to live is never going to be an exact science but in my view whether he got that right or as it turns out he got it wrong, nonetheless, those two other factors meant the decision should have been not to release al-Megrahi.”
[From a report in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, one of the local newspapers serving the area that includes Lockerbie.]
Keep those newspaper sales going with so-called national fury
[This is the headline over a section in Richard Ingrams's Week in today's edition of The Independent. It reads as follows:]
It was not so long ago that Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn announced that the nation was "recoiling in disgust" at the release from prison of the so-called Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi. A few days later, Times journalist Tom Baldwin claimed that much of the world was "shuddering" as Megrahi was given a hero's welcome on his return to Libya.
We have become used to being told that we are recoiling or shuddering over some particular horror. Right now the nation is reported to be reeling with anger or possibly even fury over the news that child murderer Jon Venables, pictured above at the age of 10, may or may not have committed an unnamed offence following his release from prison.
If there is anger, or even fury, you may not have been aware of it as you went about your daily tasks any more than you noticed anyone recoiling in disgust over the Lockerbie bomber.
It would be nice to say that these instances of mass fury exist only in the imagination of journalists. But even that isn't true. No one has imagined fury or anything of the kind. It is a purely cynical exercise designed to drum up sales. The murder of James Bulger would have been forgotten long ago if it had not been for the tabloid press. The same was true of other bugbears like Myra Hindley who was regularly featured on the front pages with reports of nationwide anger about her favourable treatment in prison.
If the nation is going to be angry about anything it would be nice if it could get angry about such cheap sensationalism. Even nicer if it felt like recoiling in disgust. The sad thing is that nobody will be all that bothered.
[A somewhat different attitude is -- unsurprisingly -- displayed in an editorial headed "A terrorist's last(?) laugh" in today's edition of the New York Post. It reads:]
More than six months have now passed since Libyan Lockerbie bomber Abdul Ali al-Megrahi was given a "compassionate" release from a Scottish prison -- because he had less than three months to live.
Not only is Megrahi -- who got life for his role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, which killed 270 -- still alive, but the cancer that allegedly had him at death's door reportedly has stabilized.
So instead of rotting behind bars, Megrahi's apparently living a life of relative ease in Moammar Khadafy's Libya.
Supposedly, he's now taking a chemotherapy drug he couldn't get in prison -- and which might have kept him in stir.
No matter; Megrahi is alive and free, and laughing at Western justice.
And may well be for a while longer.
It was not so long ago that Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn announced that the nation was "recoiling in disgust" at the release from prison of the so-called Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi. A few days later, Times journalist Tom Baldwin claimed that much of the world was "shuddering" as Megrahi was given a hero's welcome on his return to Libya.
We have become used to being told that we are recoiling or shuddering over some particular horror. Right now the nation is reported to be reeling with anger or possibly even fury over the news that child murderer Jon Venables, pictured above at the age of 10, may or may not have committed an unnamed offence following his release from prison.
If there is anger, or even fury, you may not have been aware of it as you went about your daily tasks any more than you noticed anyone recoiling in disgust over the Lockerbie bomber.
It would be nice to say that these instances of mass fury exist only in the imagination of journalists. But even that isn't true. No one has imagined fury or anything of the kind. It is a purely cynical exercise designed to drum up sales. The murder of James Bulger would have been forgotten long ago if it had not been for the tabloid press. The same was true of other bugbears like Myra Hindley who was regularly featured on the front pages with reports of nationwide anger about her favourable treatment in prison.
If the nation is going to be angry about anything it would be nice if it could get angry about such cheap sensationalism. Even nicer if it felt like recoiling in disgust. The sad thing is that nobody will be all that bothered.
[A somewhat different attitude is -- unsurprisingly -- displayed in an editorial headed "A terrorist's last(?) laugh" in today's edition of the New York Post. It reads:]
More than six months have now passed since Libyan Lockerbie bomber Abdul Ali al-Megrahi was given a "compassionate" release from a Scottish prison -- because he had less than three months to live.
Not only is Megrahi -- who got life for his role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, which killed 270 -- still alive, but the cancer that allegedly had him at death's door reportedly has stabilized.
So instead of rotting behind bars, Megrahi's apparently living a life of relative ease in Moammar Khadafy's Libya.
Supposedly, he's now taking a chemotherapy drug he couldn't get in prison -- and which might have kept him in stir.
No matter; Megrahi is alive and free, and laughing at Western justice.
And may well be for a while longer.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Fresh demands to see Megrahi medical files after health improves
[This is the headline over a report recently published on The Scotsman website. It reads in part:]
The clamour for full disclosure of the Lockerbie bomber's medical files grew last night after it emerged that the son of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi has claimed that his condition has "greatly improved".
The health and life expectancy of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was the subject of renewed speculation after Saif Gaddafi suggested he was doing much better now that he was home in Libya.
Seven months after the man convicted of the worst mass murder in British legal history was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, Saif Gaddafi said he was in "good condition".
His remarks follow reports that the Libyan intelligence agent, convicted of murdering 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, has been prescribed chemotherapy treatment Taxotere after returning to Libya.
Mr Gaddafi, who is tipped to take over from his father as Libyan leader, told the Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that Megrahi "was sick and was released for humanitarian reasons, and was soon in better health and in a good condition. His future is now in God's hands."
Mr Gaddafi also claimed the convicted killer's release had dominated trade talks with Britain [RB: Britain, not Scotland. As far as I am aware there have been no trade talks between Libya and the Scottish Government or Scottish business interests]. Mr MacAskill has always insisted that Megrahi was released purely on compassionate grounds. (...)
Richard Baker, Scottish Labour spokesperson for justice, said: "It's time for the SNP to stop the secrecy surrounding the medical reasons for this man's return to Libya. If Megrahi is responding to treatment, then it calls further into question his compassionate release by Kenny MacAskill."
Bill Aitken, the Conservative justice spokesman, said: "The longer this goes and the more tales that come out of Libya, the more Kenny MacAskill must be cringeing. We are now over eight months after the prognosis that Megrahi had three months to live. The medical evidence was not nearly sound enough and MacAskill has embarrassed Scotland big time."
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: "Mr Megrahi has terminal prostate cancer and he was sent home to die based on the medical report of the Scottish Prison Service Director of Health and the recommendations of the Parole Board and Prison Governor, all of which has been published by the Scottish Government."
The clamour for full disclosure of the Lockerbie bomber's medical files grew last night after it emerged that the son of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi has claimed that his condition has "greatly improved".
The health and life expectancy of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was the subject of renewed speculation after Saif Gaddafi suggested he was doing much better now that he was home in Libya.
Seven months after the man convicted of the worst mass murder in British legal history was released on compassionate grounds by the Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, Saif Gaddafi said he was in "good condition".
His remarks follow reports that the Libyan intelligence agent, convicted of murdering 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, has been prescribed chemotherapy treatment Taxotere after returning to Libya.
Mr Gaddafi, who is tipped to take over from his father as Libyan leader, told the Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that Megrahi "was sick and was released for humanitarian reasons, and was soon in better health and in a good condition. His future is now in God's hands."
Mr Gaddafi also claimed the convicted killer's release had dominated trade talks with Britain [RB: Britain, not Scotland. As far as I am aware there have been no trade talks between Libya and the Scottish Government or Scottish business interests]. Mr MacAskill has always insisted that Megrahi was released purely on compassionate grounds. (...)
Richard Baker, Scottish Labour spokesperson for justice, said: "It's time for the SNP to stop the secrecy surrounding the medical reasons for this man's return to Libya. If Megrahi is responding to treatment, then it calls further into question his compassionate release by Kenny MacAskill."
Bill Aitken, the Conservative justice spokesman, said: "The longer this goes and the more tales that come out of Libya, the more Kenny MacAskill must be cringeing. We are now over eight months after the prognosis that Megrahi had three months to live. The medical evidence was not nearly sound enough and MacAskill has embarrassed Scotland big time."
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: "Mr Megrahi has terminal prostate cancer and he was sent home to die based on the medical report of the Scottish Prison Service Director of Health and the recommendations of the Parole Board and Prison Governor, all of which has been published by the Scottish Government."
Monday, 15 March 2010
Megrahi can live for five years
[This is the headline over a report in today's Scottish edition of The Sun. It reads in part:]
The Lockerbie bomber was at the centre of a fresh row last night after it emerged he is taking a cancer-busting drug that could keep him alive for FIVE more years.
Terminally ill Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was prescribed chemotherapy treatment Taxotere after returning to Libya.
But yesterday reports claimed Megrahi wasn't given the drug while he was in Greenock prison - amid claims he could have been kept behind bars if he had taken the medication.
Last night Tory justice spokesman Bill Aitken demanded answers from Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.
He said: "Was the existence of a drug which is reportedly now extending the life of the Lockerbie bomber included in any of the reports Kenny MacAskill read before making the decision to release him?
"Alex Salmond's government is still refusing to publish the independent advice upon which they based their decision." (...)
Yesterday it emerged the prostate cancer sufferer's condition has now stabilised.
A source close to the 57-year-old said: "After his treatments, he can be unwell for two or three days but then enjoys a period when he's quite well."
[The real issue is why the treatment that appears now to be successfully prolonging Mr Megrahi's life was not made available to him while he was a guest of Her Majesty in Greenock Prison. One of the principal reasons advanced by the Crown for opposing Megrahi's application for interim liberation (bail) pending his SCCRC mandated appeal was that the very best of cancer treatment was available to him through the Scottish prison medical service. Indeed, it was largely on this basis that the High Court refused bail. Paragraph 15 of the court's reasons for refusal reads:]
"While the disease from which the appellant suffers is incurable and may cause his death, he is not at present suffering material pain or disability. The full services of the National Health Service are available to him, notwithstanding he is in custody. There is, it appears, no immediate prospect of serious deterioration in his condition. The prognosis for its development is at present uncertain. If he responds well to the course of palliative treatment which he has now started, his life expectancy may be in years. If he does not respond well, that expectancy may be less good. While recognising that the psychological burden of knowledge of an incurable fatal disease may be easier to bear in a family environment than in custody, the Court, having regard to the grave nature of the conviction and taking into account the fact that a reference has been made and the fact that the appeal process is likely to be protracted, is not persuaded that the stage has been reached when early release is appropriate. If the applicant does not respond well to the treatment he is undertaking and the prognosis becomes both more certain and poorer, a stage may then be reached when a different disposal is appropriate. The Court is prepared to entertain a renewed application in such circumstances. In the present circumstances, however, for the reasons which have been given, the application is in hoc statu refused."
The Lockerbie bomber was at the centre of a fresh row last night after it emerged he is taking a cancer-busting drug that could keep him alive for FIVE more years.
Terminally ill Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was prescribed chemotherapy treatment Taxotere after returning to Libya.
But yesterday reports claimed Megrahi wasn't given the drug while he was in Greenock prison - amid claims he could have been kept behind bars if he had taken the medication.
Last night Tory justice spokesman Bill Aitken demanded answers from Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.
He said: "Was the existence of a drug which is reportedly now extending the life of the Lockerbie bomber included in any of the reports Kenny MacAskill read before making the decision to release him?
"Alex Salmond's government is still refusing to publish the independent advice upon which they based their decision." (...)
Yesterday it emerged the prostate cancer sufferer's condition has now stabilised.
A source close to the 57-year-old said: "After his treatments, he can be unwell for two or three days but then enjoys a period when he's quite well."
[The real issue is why the treatment that appears now to be successfully prolonging Mr Megrahi's life was not made available to him while he was a guest of Her Majesty in Greenock Prison. One of the principal reasons advanced by the Crown for opposing Megrahi's application for interim liberation (bail) pending his SCCRC mandated appeal was that the very best of cancer treatment was available to him through the Scottish prison medical service. Indeed, it was largely on this basis that the High Court refused bail. Paragraph 15 of the court's reasons for refusal reads:]
"While the disease from which the appellant suffers is incurable and may cause his death, he is not at present suffering material pain or disability. The full services of the National Health Service are available to him, notwithstanding he is in custody. There is, it appears, no immediate prospect of serious deterioration in his condition. The prognosis for its development is at present uncertain. If he responds well to the course of palliative treatment which he has now started, his life expectancy may be in years. If he does not respond well, that expectancy may be less good. While recognising that the psychological burden of knowledge of an incurable fatal disease may be easier to bear in a family environment than in custody, the Court, having regard to the grave nature of the conviction and taking into account the fact that a reference has been made and the fact that the appeal process is likely to be protracted, is not persuaded that the stage has been reached when early release is appropriate. If the applicant does not respond well to the treatment he is undertaking and the prognosis becomes both more certain and poorer, a stage may then be reached when a different disposal is appropriate. The Court is prepared to entertain a renewed application in such circumstances. In the present circumstances, however, for the reasons which have been given, the application is in hoc statu refused."
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Taking another look at the destruction of Pan Am 103
[This is the headline over an article in the March 2010 edition of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs by the magazine's publisher, Ambassaador Andrew I Killgore. It reads in part:]
In February 1986 Israeli Mossad operatives installed a “Trojan” communications device on the top floor of an apartment house in Tripoli, Libya. The six-foot-long device was able to receive messages on one frequency and automatically rebroadcast the same message on a different frequency—in this case, one used by the government of Libya.
Israeli naval commandos arriving in miniature submarines in the middle of the night had delivered the Trojan, only seven inches in diameter, to the lone Mossad agent in Tripoli, who drove a rented van to their rendezvous point on a deserted beach outside Tripoli. The agent, along with four of the commandos, then took the Trojan to an apartment building in the Libyan capital where he had rented the top floor, and installed the device. By March the Trojan was broadcasting a series of “terrorist” orders to Libyan embassies around the world. (...)
Less than two months after the Trojan was installed, on April 5, 1986, the La Belle nightclub in then-West Berlin was bombed, killing two American soldiers and a Turkish woman. At the same time a false “success” signal was sent, apparently from the device in Tripoli.
“False-flagged” by Israel, President Ronald Reagan on April 14 sent American bombers from Britain and from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean to strike Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 101 people, including the adopted young daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi when his house in Tripoli was bombed. (...)
The proximity in time between the Lockerbie crash and the shooting down by the USS Vincennes on July 3 of that year of an Iran Air passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, with the loss of 290 lives, presented a perfect “revenge” scenario. That, clearly, was the initial premise of the investigators at Lockerbie. Dr Robert Black, professor of criminal law at Edinburgh University in Scotland, told this writer that, for the first two years following the Pan Am crash, investigators were focused on Iran as having hired Ahmad Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command to carry out a retaliatory bombing.
In a Jan 28, 2009 article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, however, the late Russell Warren Howe cited the book Gideon’s Spies by Gordon Thomas. Thomas quotes a Mossad source as saying, “Within hours after the [Pan Am 103] crash Mossad’s LAP [psychological warfare or disinformation] staff were working their media contacts, urging them to blame and publicize that ‘Libya-did-it.’”
They could have blamed Iran, of course, but that would have gone against the Israeli grain. Iran was a large, non-Arab Muslim nation — and, as such, always of potential benefit to an Israel heavily outnumbered by the Arabs. Israel had even “done business” with the Islamic Republic a few years earlier, in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair. It’s also possible, of course, that the Israelis know Iran was not the guilty party.
The perpetrators of the crime against the passengers and crew of Pan Am Flight 103 had intended that it crash at sea, leaving no physical evidence and no bodies to tell the tale. But turbulent weather over Heathrow Airport had led the pilot of the giant Boeing 747 to steer slightly more northward than usual, so the plane was still over land when it crashed at Lockerbie, Scotland.
The criminals thus had to think fast. A fragment from the alleged bomb trigger device was “found” several days after the crash. However, as the BBC program “Newsnight” reported on Jan 8 of this year, tests aimed at reproducing the blast indicated that no such fragment would have survived the mid-air explosion. The “evidence,” moreover, was placed in a sack which was labeled in a certain way—but the label was subsequently changed by an unknown person, causing suspicion that evidence was being altered. As Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the crash, has written: “Coming from a scientific educational background, I found that it was the forensic evidence at [the trial at Camp] Zeist…which first convinced me that the prosecution case was a fabrication.”
Another astonishing factor was that the Crown (the prosecutors) ignored evidence of a break-in of the Pan Am luggage area at Heathrow early in the morning of that fatal December day. One wonders whether Pan Am had been alerted to security problems at Heathrow by Isaac Yeffet, the former head of security at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport, where security is airtight. In an article in the March 1989 issue of the now-defunct Life magazine entitled “The Next Bomb,” Edward Barnes wrote, “in 1986 Yeffet was part of a team commissioned by Pan Am to survey 25 of its branches around the world…Yeffet now runs a security consulting business in New Jersey.”
Dr. Swire, who has described the Court’s conviction of Megrahi as “a cock and bull story,” is not alone in his skepticism. Hans Köchler, the UN observer at the trial, has described the verdict as “incomprehensible,” and Dr Robert Black has denounced the guilty verdict in equally dismissive language.
Thus the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 remains a mystery. If two years of investigating Iran produced no evidence, and the evidence used to convict Megrahi was fake, who was responsible for the horrific crime?
[The past week's absence of posts on this blog was due to my having taken a trip across the border to Namibia. But as far as I can see, little worthy of mention has appeared in the media during my absence.
For those with the stomach for it, a nasty little story in today's edition of the Sunday Mirror headed "The man who will not die ..." can be read here.
Since I posted the link to the piece in the Sunday Mirror, the headline over the report on the newspaper's website has been altered to "Lockerbie bomber Abdul-Basset Al-Megrahi has 30,000 visitors and babies named after him". Can it be that a humble blogger can arouse feelings of shame in a tabloid journalist or sub-editor? Surely not.]
In February 1986 Israeli Mossad operatives installed a “Trojan” communications device on the top floor of an apartment house in Tripoli, Libya. The six-foot-long device was able to receive messages on one frequency and automatically rebroadcast the same message on a different frequency—in this case, one used by the government of Libya.
Israeli naval commandos arriving in miniature submarines in the middle of the night had delivered the Trojan, only seven inches in diameter, to the lone Mossad agent in Tripoli, who drove a rented van to their rendezvous point on a deserted beach outside Tripoli. The agent, along with four of the commandos, then took the Trojan to an apartment building in the Libyan capital where he had rented the top floor, and installed the device. By March the Trojan was broadcasting a series of “terrorist” orders to Libyan embassies around the world. (...)
Less than two months after the Trojan was installed, on April 5, 1986, the La Belle nightclub in then-West Berlin was bombed, killing two American soldiers and a Turkish woman. At the same time a false “success” signal was sent, apparently from the device in Tripoli.
“False-flagged” by Israel, President Ronald Reagan on April 14 sent American bombers from Britain and from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean to strike Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 101 people, including the adopted young daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi when his house in Tripoli was bombed. (...)
The proximity in time between the Lockerbie crash and the shooting down by the USS Vincennes on July 3 of that year of an Iran Air passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, with the loss of 290 lives, presented a perfect “revenge” scenario. That, clearly, was the initial premise of the investigators at Lockerbie. Dr Robert Black, professor of criminal law at Edinburgh University in Scotland, told this writer that, for the first two years following the Pan Am crash, investigators were focused on Iran as having hired Ahmad Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command to carry out a retaliatory bombing.
In a Jan 28, 2009 article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, however, the late Russell Warren Howe cited the book Gideon’s Spies by Gordon Thomas. Thomas quotes a Mossad source as saying, “Within hours after the [Pan Am 103] crash Mossad’s LAP [psychological warfare or disinformation] staff were working their media contacts, urging them to blame and publicize that ‘Libya-did-it.’”
They could have blamed Iran, of course, but that would have gone against the Israeli grain. Iran was a large, non-Arab Muslim nation — and, as such, always of potential benefit to an Israel heavily outnumbered by the Arabs. Israel had even “done business” with the Islamic Republic a few years earlier, in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair. It’s also possible, of course, that the Israelis know Iran was not the guilty party.
The perpetrators of the crime against the passengers and crew of Pan Am Flight 103 had intended that it crash at sea, leaving no physical evidence and no bodies to tell the tale. But turbulent weather over Heathrow Airport had led the pilot of the giant Boeing 747 to steer slightly more northward than usual, so the plane was still over land when it crashed at Lockerbie, Scotland.
The criminals thus had to think fast. A fragment from the alleged bomb trigger device was “found” several days after the crash. However, as the BBC program “Newsnight” reported on Jan 8 of this year, tests aimed at reproducing the blast indicated that no such fragment would have survived the mid-air explosion. The “evidence,” moreover, was placed in a sack which was labeled in a certain way—but the label was subsequently changed by an unknown person, causing suspicion that evidence was being altered. As Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the crash, has written: “Coming from a scientific educational background, I found that it was the forensic evidence at [the trial at Camp] Zeist…which first convinced me that the prosecution case was a fabrication.”
Another astonishing factor was that the Crown (the prosecutors) ignored evidence of a break-in of the Pan Am luggage area at Heathrow early in the morning of that fatal December day. One wonders whether Pan Am had been alerted to security problems at Heathrow by Isaac Yeffet, the former head of security at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport, where security is airtight. In an article in the March 1989 issue of the now-defunct Life magazine entitled “The Next Bomb,” Edward Barnes wrote, “in 1986 Yeffet was part of a team commissioned by Pan Am to survey 25 of its branches around the world…Yeffet now runs a security consulting business in New Jersey.”
Dr. Swire, who has described the Court’s conviction of Megrahi as “a cock and bull story,” is not alone in his skepticism. Hans Köchler, the UN observer at the trial, has described the verdict as “incomprehensible,” and Dr Robert Black has denounced the guilty verdict in equally dismissive language.
Thus the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 remains a mystery. If two years of investigating Iran produced no evidence, and the evidence used to convict Megrahi was fake, who was responsible for the horrific crime?
[The past week's absence of posts on this blog was due to my having taken a trip across the border to Namibia. But as far as I can see, little worthy of mention has appeared in the media during my absence.
For those with the stomach for it, a nasty little story in today's edition of the Sunday Mirror headed "The man who will not die ..." can be read here.
Since I posted the link to the piece in the Sunday Mirror, the headline over the report on the newspaper's website has been altered to "Lockerbie bomber Abdul-Basset Al-Megrahi has 30,000 visitors and babies named after him". Can it be that a humble blogger can arouse feelings of shame in a tabloid journalist or sub-editor? Surely not.]
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Megrahi's family abandon plans to sell Scottish home
The family of the Lockerbie bomber have abandoned plans to sell their Scottish house.
Experts believe the five-bed, two-storey home in Newton Mearns, Glasgow, has plunged in value by £100,000.
The house has been empty for six months since Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, his wife and five children returned to Libya.
It was bought for £495,000 in 2002 but similar local homes have sold for less than £400,000.
The house owner is named on property records as Megrahi's wife, Aisha. (...)
Paisley-based surveyor Peter McEachran said: "Houses of the same size in the area are selling for around £395,000.
"It may be a while before it can be sold at a profit."
The family chose the house as it was only 30 minutes' drive from Barlinnie Prison, where Megrahi was first held.
[From a report in today's edition of The Sunday Mail.]
Experts believe the five-bed, two-storey home in Newton Mearns, Glasgow, has plunged in value by £100,000.
The house has been empty for six months since Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, his wife and five children returned to Libya.
It was bought for £495,000 in 2002 but similar local homes have sold for less than £400,000.
The house owner is named on property records as Megrahi's wife, Aisha. (...)
Paisley-based surveyor Peter McEachran said: "Houses of the same size in the area are selling for around £395,000.
"It may be a while before it can be sold at a profit."
The family chose the house as it was only 30 minutes' drive from Barlinnie Prison, where Megrahi was first held.
[From a report in today's edition of The Sunday Mail.]
Thursday, 4 March 2010
From Lockerbie to Zeist
A slightly revised edition of an article by me with this title - originally published in Malta in 2000 in a book edited by Joe Mifsud - now appears on Caustic Logic's The Lockerbie Divide blog. It can be read here.
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
PM’s silence over Megrahi ‘screw up’
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Herald. It reads in part:]
Gordon Brown’s silence on the decision to release Abdel-baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was “a screw up”, a cabinet colleague allegedly said.
The alleged view is reported in The End Of The Party by political journalist Andrew Rawnsley, who has already incurred the wrath of Downing Street over allegations the Prime Minister mistreated staff at No 10, claims vehemently denied by Mr Brown. (...)
Mr Rawnsley writes: “Gordon Brown said nothing at all. He carried on with his holiday in the Lake District and Fife as if nothing unusual was happening.”
The book states key aides were abroad on holiday. “‘We were caught cold. The system failed him. We all failed him,’ said one senior official, who reportedly added: ‘We had no idea about the furtive discussions between the Foreign Office and the Libyans.’”
Mr Rawnsley writes about the unsustainability of Mr Brown’s position, saying the PM was “frozen by fear” that if he expressed an opinion about Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds, he would infuriate either the US, Libya, the Holyrood Government, the victims’ families, the Scottish Labour Party or the oil companies.
Gordon Brown’s silence on the decision to release Abdel-baset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was “a screw up”, a cabinet colleague allegedly said.
The alleged view is reported in The End Of The Party by political journalist Andrew Rawnsley, who has already incurred the wrath of Downing Street over allegations the Prime Minister mistreated staff at No 10, claims vehemently denied by Mr Brown. (...)
Mr Rawnsley writes: “Gordon Brown said nothing at all. He carried on with his holiday in the Lake District and Fife as if nothing unusual was happening.”
The book states key aides were abroad on holiday. “‘We were caught cold. The system failed him. We all failed him,’ said one senior official, who reportedly added: ‘We had no idea about the furtive discussions between the Foreign Office and the Libyans.’”
Mr Rawnsley writes about the unsustainability of Mr Brown’s position, saying the PM was “frozen by fear” that if he expressed an opinion about Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release Mr Megrahi on compassionate grounds, he would infuriate either the US, Libya, the Holyrood Government, the victims’ families, the Scottish Labour Party or the oil companies.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
I wasn't paid by Libya to lie about al-Megrahi cancer, insists doctor
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Sunday Mail, a Scottish Sunday newspaper. it reads in part:]
A doctor has denied he was paid a fortune by the Libyans to say that the Lockerbie bomber was dying.
British cancer expert, Professor Karol Sikora, was one of three specialists hired by the Libyan government to examine Abdelbaset al-Megrahi shortly before his release last August. He said that the Libyan had only three months to live.
This was crucial because, under Scottish rules, prisoners can be freed on compassionate grounds if they are considered to have fewer than three months to live. Yet six months later, Megrahi, 58, is still alive. Yesterday Prof Sikora insisted Megrahiw as gravely ill and not expected to live much longer.
He said: "Some people think we were paid billions of dollars by the Libyans to say he was going to die. The fact is there was no pressure at all on us to say he was going to die.
"On the balance of probabilities, there was a 50 per cent chance he would die in three months. If you saw the clinical detail.he had all the signs.
"I only saw him on one occasion but I went through everything and talked to the prison doctors who had seen him day in, day out.
'I am very surprised that he is still alive. The latest informationl have from Tripoli is that he is not a well man and suspect he will be dead within a month or so."
A doctor has denied he was paid a fortune by the Libyans to say that the Lockerbie bomber was dying.
British cancer expert, Professor Karol Sikora, was one of three specialists hired by the Libyan government to examine Abdelbaset al-Megrahi shortly before his release last August. He said that the Libyan had only three months to live.
This was crucial because, under Scottish rules, prisoners can be freed on compassionate grounds if they are considered to have fewer than three months to live. Yet six months later, Megrahi, 58, is still alive. Yesterday Prof Sikora insisted Megrahiw as gravely ill and not expected to live much longer.
He said: "Some people think we were paid billions of dollars by the Libyans to say he was going to die. The fact is there was no pressure at all on us to say he was going to die.
"On the balance of probabilities, there was a 50 per cent chance he would die in three months. If you saw the clinical detail.he had all the signs.
"I only saw him on one occasion but I went through everything and talked to the prison doctors who had seen him day in, day out.
'I am very surprised that he is still alive. The latest informationl have from Tripoli is that he is not a well man and suspect he will be dead within a month or so."
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