Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (a Libyan who was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli, Libya, and an alleged Libyan intelligence officer) was convicted on 31 January 2001 by a special Scottish Court in the Netherlands for the bomb attack on Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988 over Lockerbie. After he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, he was released from prison on compassionate grounds on 20 August 2009 by the Scottish Government, having served years of a life sentence. His release was authorised by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. The decision attracted significant news coverage, engendering widespread celebration in Libya, a largely hostile reaction in the United States and a more equally divided reaction in Britain.
It would take 33 months for the cancer to kill al-Megrahi, exceeding the approximate three months suggested in August 2009. His prolonged survival generated much controversy. In Libya, he was released from hospital and later lived at his family's villa. His death was announced on 20 May 2012.
Background Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London's Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On Wednesday 21 December 1988, the aircraft flying this route—a Boeing 747-121 named Clipper Maid of the Seas—was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. Eleven people in Lockerbie, southern Scotland, were killed as large sections of the plane fell in and around the town, bringing total fatalities to 270.
After a three-year joint investigation by Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, a station manager for LAA, were indicted for the bombing in November 1991. Libya refused to hand them over. After UN sanctions prompted negotiations, Libya agreed to bench trial in the Netherlands before a Scottish court. The United States was given what the then British ambassador, speaking in a personal capacity in August 2009, characterised as a "clear political and diplomatic understanding" that Megrahi would serve his full sentence in Scotland.
At the trial at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands, witnesses, two of whom were paid millions of dollars apiece for their testimony, were heard. Megrahi was convicted of involvement in the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment; however, Fhimah had an air-tight alibi and was found not guilty. The trial judges recommended that Megrahi should serve at least 20 years before being eligible for parole. One witness later recanted.
Release application and decision to release
On 24 July 2009, Al Megrahi's legal team made a request for him to be released from prison on compassionate grounds. Although it was not a precondition for compassionate release, his defence counsel lodged a request to abandon his second appeal on 12 August 2009, shortly after his private meeting with the Justice Secretary in Greenock jail on 4 August 2009. The abandonment of Megrahi's appeal was accepted by the High Court of Justiciary on 18 August 2009.
Megrahi had developed prostate cancer. The Scottish Secretary of Justice at the time, Kenny MacAskill ordered his release under a 1993 Scottish statute enabling the release from prison of anyone deemed by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live. MacAskill has said repeatedly that he bears sole responsibility for the decision. In addition to the Scottish government's own medical examinations which were the only ones contributing to the release decision, the Libyan government arranged for extra examinations, which involved, among others, Dr Karol Sikora of the University of Buckingham, who examined Megrahi in prison early in July, and requested an "urgent" decision on returning him to Libya because he believed Megrahi had only a very short period of time to live.
An Afriqiyah Airways aircraft—the personal aircraft of Colonel Gaddafi, registered 5A-IAY—was flown to Glasgow Airport on 20 August 2009 to collect Megrahi. The aircraft then flew Megrahi directly to Tripoli. Reactions to release Scottish reaction
The release divided opinions across Scotland and the Scottish Parliament was recalled from its summer break to receive a statement from and question MacAskill, for only the third time in its ten-year history.the previous two occasions being necessitated by the deaths of Donald Dewar and the Queen Mother.
A BBC/ICM poll found that 60% of Scots thought the Scottish Government was wrong to release Megrahi, although 56% said MacAskill should not resign. The poll also found that 74% of those polled believed that, "the affair had damaged Scotland's reputation."Majority 'oppose' Megrahi release, BBC News, 28 August 2009. A Ipsos Mori poll of Scots published on 29 August 2009 showed a narrow plurality of 47% to 40% opposed to MacAskill's decision.
Views representing the faith communities were generally supportive. Rev. Ian Galloway, the convener of the Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council, said that "justice is not lost in acting in mercy." Similarly, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, voiced his personal support for the decision, describing compassion as "one of the principles inscribed on the mace of the Scottish Parliament by which Scotland's government should operate".FBI chief's attack 'out of order' – Conti, BBC News, 24 August 2009.
Political opponents of the SNP government attacked the decision. Iain Gray, the Scottish Labour leader, said that "The SNP's handling of this case has let down Scotland. Kenny MacAskill's conduct has damaged the Scottish Justice system and, in turn, Scotland's international reputation." Richard Baker, the Scottish Labour shadow justice minister, said the decision was "an act of unpardonable folly" and called for MacAskill's resignation. Former Scottish Labour First Minister Jack McConnell said that MacAskill had "damaged Scotland in a way 'that will take years to recover." Writing in the Telegraph, former Labour MP and Scottish Office minister Brian Wilson wrote that the decision "shamed" Scotland, and co-opted an anti-war slogan to sum up his anger: "Not in our name, Mr MacAskill."
However, former Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who has long believed in Megrahi's innocence, said that MacAskill "had arrived at the right decision on compassionate grounds" and former Labour First Minister Henry McLeish described FBI director Robert Mueller's attack on the decision as 'out of order' saying it was "an unfair slur on the Scots justice system".
UK reaction A poll commissioned by The Times newspaper found that 61% of Britons thought that MacAskill had made the wrong decision, and 45% thought that the release had more to do with oil than Megrahi's terminal illness.
Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Libya, said while he understood public anger about the release, "there are not good reasons why anybody convicted of that crime should be excepted from normal rules which apply for considering release on compassionate grounds."
John Mosey, an ordained Christian minister, who lost a daughter on Pan Am Flight 103, expressed his disappointment that halting Megrahi's appeal before it went to court meant that the public would never hear "this important evidence – the six separate grounds for appeal that the SCCRC felt were important enough to put forward, that could show that there's been a miscarriage of justice."
The British Government has so far declined to express an opinion on the decision, but has denied that it gave succour to terrorists, and condemned the scenes at Tripoli airport.Lockerbie move 'not terror boost', BBC News, 24 August 2009. Alistair Darling pointed out that as a question of criminal justice, and thus a devolved matter, it would be inappropriate for Westminster to comment on it.Cameron condemns Megrahi release, BBC News, 20 August 2009. Conservative leader and future prime minister David Cameron called the decision "the product of some completely nonsensical thinking", and "wrong," stating; "I see no justice in affording mercy to someone who showed no mercy to his victims." He wrote to then prime minister Gordon Brown, calling on him to express an opinion.So why is Brown silent on release of Megrahi?, The Scotsman, 22 August 2009.
Local priest Patrick Keegans, who served the Lockerbie community for five and a half years, commented on the general feeling of the community, "There's mixed reactions and mixed views. The majority of people are uncertain but a great number are of the same mind as myself. An innocent man has been convicted and they're happy to see him released."
Martin Cadman, whose son Bill was killed, said "I'm very pleased he has been released on compassionate grounds because I don't think he was the right person to be there anyway. It is just righting a wrong...I think he was innocent and he was not involved. I don't believe he should have been in prison and I'm very pleased he will be back home with his family very soon." Doctor Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, said "I don't believe for a moment that this man was involved in the way that he was found to have been involved. I feel despondent that The West and Scotland didn't have the guts to allow this man's second appeal to continue because I am convinced had they done so it would have overturned the verdict against him."
British media reaction The Times, the English edition of The Daily Telegraph, and The Economist condemned Megrahi's release. By contrast, The Scotsman, The Herald, The Independent, and the Scottish edition of the Telegraph called it controversial, but the right decision. Kenneth Roy, a former BBC broadcaster and editor of the Scottish Review, accused the BBC of bias in its reporting of Megrahi's release, arguing that it had overplayed public hostility and understated public support for MacAskill's decision.
U.S. reaction
In the United States, where 189 of the 270 Lockerbie victims came from, the decision was generally greeted with hostility. Susan Cohen told The Daily Telegraph: "You want to feel sorry for anyone, please feel sorry for me, feel sorry for my poor daughter, her body falling a mile through the air". Very few American relatives offered public support for MacAskill's decision, although in May 2010 a sister of one of the victims expressed her desire to visit and forgive Megrahi, saying "I want to look him in the eye and make sure he knows our pain... God will judge him". She said the decision to release him was "more than we could ever expect from Libya if the tables were turned.". Polling taken the following week found that 82% of Americans opposed the decision, and 10% supported it. A campaign to "Boycott Scotland" emerged on the internet, encouraging Americans to halt tourism and boycott Scottish products.