On Al-Megrahi
As everyone knows, this week has seen a complete debacle over the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. My personal view is that pretty much everyone involved has got a lot of rebuilding work to do, not least the UK government, whose role in this is made murkier with every hour they refuse to submit their views to public scrutiny. On balance, the argument for effectively commuting his sentence is less strong than for insisting that he actually serve life. If there were genuine grounds for appeal – and I suspect there might be – then his lawyers should have persisted with the appeal process.
Bearing in mind EB’s comment that ‘much of the time I no longer feel comfortable spending a fair amount of time offering relatively uninformed opinions on current topics [in which] I don’t have a formal training or firsthand experience’, I’ll leave GeoffreyRobertson QC, in The Guardian, to outline this argument further:
It seems to me an utter perversion of the meaning of compassion, both in law and morality, to suggest that an unrepentant, mass murderer of entirely innocent human beings should not be required to end his life in prison. The Lockerbie bombing was a crime against humanity, part of a series of terrorist acts most likely approved by Gaddafi and cold-bloodedly carried out by officials such as al-Megrahi. The requirements of compassion extend only, in international humanitarian law, to providing medical assistance and pain-killing drugs to treat his cancer and allowing family visits. But his crime against humanity was in law unforgiveable – that is why – such crimes have no time limits on prosecution and no provision for early release. The decision to release him for what any person of any intelligence at all would foresee as a hero’s welcome in Libya was lacking in compassion to every victim of terrorism and makes an absurdity of the principle of punishment as a deterrent. MacAskill’s arguments are both morally and logically fraudulent. We show mercy towards the merciless by abjuring torture and the death sentence. Crimes against humanity are so heinous that the perpetrator forfeits any claims to favourable treatment beyond that laid down by the Geneva conventions, namely humane treatment in prison overseen by the Red Cross. His release, in order that the criminal state which approved his crime may celebrate it and so justify its criminal actions (which include provision of semtex for many IRA atrocities as well as training terrorists for worldwide barbarities and the assassination of Gaddafi’s opponents at home and abroad, and in several cases in England), is a sad day for humanity and for the struggle for global justice. We should be ashamed that this has happened.
Mercy should season justice but only when extended to persons who can rationally be pitied or forgiven. Thus there are overwhelmingly compassionate grounds for refusing to extradite Gary McKinnon, the hacker suffering from Asperger’s. There is no kindness to anyone as a consequence of a decision to allow an unrepentant terrorist a triumphant death.
I have read the judgment of the Lockerbie court and the two appeal judgments upholding it and al-Megrahi’s guilt seems plain beyond reasonable doubt. And the obvious fact that he was following orders is not an extenuating circumstance under the Nuremberg principles. It was important that the Scottish legal system consider any fresh evidence and arguments that may have exonerated him and its failure to do so (by allowing the withdrawal of his appeal) was unjust and an indictment of Scottish procedural law. Any justice system worthy of the name should have an inherent power to reconsider its positions so as to avoid injustice. However, this failure, deplorable though it is, cannot justify the early release of a man who remains guilty until the conspiracy theory associated with claims of his innocence is proven to the extent that it raises a realistic doubt about the guilty verdict.
While taking it a bit further, I cannot help but link this to some of the actions taken by governments hostile to or embarrassed by the torture/rendition program carried out for several years before and after 9/11. When it comes to certain terrorist suspects, are we to ignore the crimes they committed and focus only (because of our concern and respect for matters of mercy and compassion) on the crimes we committed against them?
Thank you for the link. It would have been nice if I’d actually edited it to include the essentials of basic proper grammar.
Heh. It’s only a blog post …
Your comment points to a problem with academic discourse and the ‘War on Terrorism’. This was summed up in a scathing review by David Jones & MLR Smith, ‘We’re All Terrorists Now: Critical – or Hypocritical – Studies “on” Terrorism’ (2009), Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol.32, No.4, pp.292-302:
In their critique of the new Critical Studies on Terrorism journal, they attack,
I think this speaks to a potential political capitulation to the CSoT perspective. Are we too scared just to say, ‘this man has been found guilty – he must serve his time’?
OK, I’ll say it: This man has been found guilty – he must serve his time.
It will be interesting to see if Mueller follows up his letter to MacAskill by _________ ________ __ the UK. My guess is not – we do ourselves a favor by ____ ______ __ _ ______ ______ – but you can be certain that there are many of us on this side of the pond who feel rather poorly served after years of providing ____ _____ __ __ _____ __ ___ _______ _____________.
@Aaron.
I tend to agree. We could formulate the question a different way: what benefits accrue from releasing al-Megrahi? Er, pretty much none. Even he looked pretty confused at the red carpet welcome he received in Tripoli.
Interesting letter from Robert Mueller, and he doesn’t pull his punches. There’s a lot of pressure here in the UK for parliament to debate this, and for government to make a statement. The Scottish parliament has actually been recalled a week early. It’s a real mess, and the worst thing is that the horse has already bolted.
Nobody wins from this. If Scotland (UK?) thought they could somehow garner some positive spin in the Muslim world, they were very much mistaken – a severe misjudgment of the environment, in fact. Al-Megrahi is currently a hero; will he be shahid when he shuffles off his mortal one? Easy to blame the kufr for killing him slowly, etc.
Tim,
It would appear in some circles the entire enterprise has been discredited to the extent that acknowledging its utility and necessity is a thought no longer taken seriously. There is serious room for disagreement, improvement, and outright change (the memos and reports this week make it abundantly clear when even the CIA IG in ’04 is saying this whole mess teeters on bad law and worse professional ethics), but they seem not to be interested in improving this state of affairs any longer. One senses a rush to just put it all away, ending it either with a flurry of unilateral disengagements from the arena or an outright capitulation to their preferred reality because of the alleged overwhelming guilt of the whole enterprise.
Thank you for the link!
@EB
I’m not sure I totally get your point but if you mean the UK/Scottish governments are hoping this will all quietly disappear then, yes, that seems to be the case. The main losers in this are not Scotland – hardly likely to be named a ‘rogue state’, or sponsor of terrorism, any time soon – but the Labour government. I’m sure that will delight the SNP in Scotland, who will lose little sleep over it. They can cite their newly resurgent sense of ethical and moral responsibility (”compassion”, in Blairite nu-political speak), and pass the buck to Downing St. Which is where it belongs, actually.
OK, so Scotland made a judicial decision, BUT a decision that significantly affects international relations. They were under no obligation to release the guy, nor were they under political pressure to do so. Of the 20-odd people assessed for early release on compassionate grounds over the last few years in Scotland, at least seven of those appeals were rejected. It would have been much easier for everyone to just let him die in jail where – a Scottish court found – he belongs.
I guess Holyrood and Downing Street are both hoping he dies quickly, before he can write the book that will do the rounds in conspiratorial Muslim circles. Mind you, it’ll be ghost-written, edited by Qaddafi, and published posthumously if necessary anyway.
Even though he is dying,he should not be trusted and he should still be monitored.
I don’t think he’s capable of getting up to much, unless his health condition has been very much manipulated. I’m sure he won’t be allowed into too many other countries. As to whether he’s going to be monitored, ask the CIA…
It seems there were some under the table deals going on with the release.
Little evidence for that, actually, but the continued silence of Downing Street certainly creates an impression that the government is hiding something. An impression, I say, because I do not subscribe to the various conspiracies currently doing the rounds. It will, of course, be interesting to see how the Qaddafi Jr. story unfolds, and all the other strands too.