Outrageous

1. 60

   tksenseiposted 15 years ago

   In the extreme:
   
   
   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,541680,00.html
   
   
   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,541629,00.html
   
   
   http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08 … r-release/

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2. 72

   AEvansposted 15 years ago

   This turned my stomach too!!!! I am still in shock over the release of a terrorist.

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3. 60

   tksenseiposted 15 years ago

   The big 'reception' for him in Lybia was as sickening as any part of it. Like a returning national hero or something. Disgraceful.

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      AEvansposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I am still appalled and would like to know what is going to be done. I watched BBC America last night and they (Libya) tried to say he was innocent! Oh Please he is not innocent he committed a horrible crime we would not ever do that here in the U.S., well I hope not.

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4. 60

   tksenseiposted 15 years ago

   Imagine how the families of the victims must feel watching all this play out.

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      AEvansposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Betrayed, personally I am waiting to see how it is going to be handled and I hope for everyone's sake the man is really dying. I believe it is going deeper then that again it is about oil and money something is running really deep that we are not aware of and I would like to know however the media and the press isn't going to tell us. Corruption at its finest rears its ugly head once again.

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5. 77

   Uninvited Writerposted 15 years ago

   Jimmy posted about this several days ago. I was annoyed by the welcome home he got. Someone said that at least some of the families had to agree for him to be released, I'm not sure if that is true.
   
   The father of one of the victims was interviewed on TV the other day. "
   
   Robert Monetti, whose son was killed in the bombing, said he also expected al-Megrahi would be released on compassionate grounds, and when it actually happened the news was anti-climatic.
   
   Speaking to Canada AM from Philadelphia, he said the families of the Lockerbie victims were allowed to submit video statements to the Scottish judiciary before the decision was made, but in the end they had little effect.
   
   "At the very least if they let him out on compassionate leave they should have let him stay in a hospice right near the prison in Scotland," Monetti said. "But that would have cost Scotland a lot of money and so they decided it was cheaper and easier to get him out of Scotland."
   
   http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s … ?hub=World
   
   Supposedly, the ultimate decision to release him came down from Gordon Brown.

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   1. 66

      BristolBoyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I doubt greatly the Scottish National Party paid any attention to Gordon Brown, if indeed he did give such and order, since the SNP by their very nature hate being told what to do by the UK government (hence their name!).

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      Allan McGregorposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Kenny MacAskill did not decide against sending Al-Megrahi to die in a hospice on cost grounds. He considered it, but decided against turning a Scottish hospice into a security and media circus, on the grounds that other dying patients and their relatives might be spared the indignities of being searched and probed every time they visited.
      
      As a registered nurse, I have worked in many hospices and they are oases of calm to which people repair for a peaceful death. How would you like to visit your loved one in their last days, and have to fight your way through a hundred reporters and forty police officers, to say your last goodbyes to Granny?
      And what do you suppose the chance are that we'll eventually find out that those in high places all knew (as I believe they did) that Al-Megrahi was not guilty all along, but the patsy in a political show trial.
      
      Evidence of his guilt was bought and paid for, while evidence of his non-involvement was suppressed from the court and denied to his defence team. Even now Scotland's Lord Advocate has agreed that a secret letter from 'a foreign power Britain did not wish to offend' could be released, but the UK government refuses to do so. This is not wild conspiracy theory, but officially available fact. Everyone over here knows it, but the American media has been insufficiently interested to pay it any attention all these years - I suspect, lest anyone there ask too many questions about American covert involvement in stitching up Al-Megrahi.
      
      The matter of his guilt has been a deep controversy here for years, and I suspect played a large part in Tony Blair's involvement with Gaddafi two years ago, and Gordon Brown's eloquent silence even now. Hilary Clinton and others know fine well that Al-Megrahi was hung out to dry, and what I find shameful was his show trial then and their manufacted indignation now, aimed solely and cynically at their own constituency.

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6. 81

   jiberishposted 15 years ago

   Well, if this is a show of symphathy, the we can assume that every crimial could have a story which would let them out of jails or even Gitmo. It is ourtrageous, and the families have every right to be upset.

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   1. 66

      BristolBoyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I think it is more to do with the fact that he has terminal cancer.  I doubt many criminals have terminal cancer, although releasing them woudl certainly help reduce the jail overcrowding!

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      Allan McGregorposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Actually everyone held at Gitmo does have a quibble under the United States Constitution: they are being held indefinitely without charge or trial; never mind the question of torture. That's precisely why they are being held there, because it is illegal in America.
      
      As to the specifics of Mr Al-Megrahi's case, the crime for which he was indicted was an abomination for which he should rightly have been executed. The point is, I and many others do not believe he is guilty.
      
      The Scottish court convicted him on slender enough evidence which has been unravelling for years and increasingly exposed as a stitch-up. Had the judges known then what we know now (that evidence had been compromised and witnesses bought and paid for) he would never have been convicted, which I suspect is the real reason for his release, because even had he died, Al-Megrahi's appeal process could have continued posthumously, opening a can of worms that neither the British nor American Governments wished to see exposed.

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7. 66

   BristolBoyposted 15 years ago

   It is important to note that Scotland has it's own government now, and so Gordon Brown (Prime Minister of the UK) had no say whatsoever in the release.
   
   It is also important to note that under Scottish (and many other European countries) law there is the law for compassionate release and so there is the possibility for this person to be released (as has happened for other people in the UK such as Ronnie Biggs).  Whether it is right or wrong is debateable, but some American's have claimed releasing him is illegal, maybe if it was American law but this case was under Scottish jurisdiction under which it wasn't illegal. 
   
   Of course it will help the British companies in Libya, but again it is unlikley that this will have had too much of an influence on the release of Megrahi since the British Labour government under Gordon Brown are in no way allied to the Scottish government of the SNP (Scottish National Party).

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      Allan McGregorposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Just a point BristolBoy, that compassionate release is legal and available in the United States; it just isn't used much because politicians there are more sensitive to anything that may harm their votes.

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8. 77

   Uninvited Writerposted 15 years ago

   Glad to see you back Bristol Boy

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   1. 66

      BristolBoyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks!  It's good to be back, even if many of the posts are very similar in theme to ones from a coupel of months ago!
      
      Finished uni but then went on holiday etc and so haven't been able to spend much time online and the time which I did spend was spent sorting out emails etc rather than on the Hubpages forums!

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      1. 77

         Uninvited Writerposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I know, it hasn't changed at all

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9. 69

   Plants and Oilsposted 15 years ago

   Personally, I think there are real doubts about his conviction (as do some of the Lockerbie families).
   
   But either way, mercy isn't weakness.

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   1. 60

      Allan McGregorposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I suspect the Scripture you might be looking for is James 2:13 -'For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.'
      
      However, I don't think this issue will go away as some seem to hope, but that America will rise up in anger when it realises it was hoodwinked into believing in the guilt of an innocent man, as an enormous body of evidence now points towards.
      
      I remember in years gone by how we used to watch old films of Soviet and Nazi show trials and express our disgust at such corrupt dictatorships while thanking God that we did not live in such a society. After witnessing Al-Megrahi's trial I began to entertain doubts whether that was still true, and even more so since so many of its flaws have subsequently emerged.

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