So the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing which killed 270 people has been released on compassionate grounds due to him dying of prostate cancer
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I think the conviction is entirely unsafe and am entirely unconvinced of either his guilt or innocence - and therefore believe in extending the benefit of the doubt
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Totally agree. It's not like there's a chance he's going to reoffend - the medical evidence given at the hearing by independants suggests he's got days left really. We can hardly bleat on about other nation's treatment of prisoners if we didn't let someone out purely so people could watch him die in prison.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the conviction was unsafe either.
Personally the guy's been sitting in a hospital for a while anyway with only a few weeks to live. It's not really going to matter if he's released or not.
As for his conviction well yeah I am unconvinced by it now, he only got put inside on some shaky evidence forwarded by the CIA/FBI. Guilty? Possibly not. I could have seen him getting out on appeal eventually anyway, much to Americas dismay.
Exactly - his second appeal had good grounds to succeed so even if he died during it there would be a good chance he would be posthumously exonnerated. This way he's still classed as guilty so those out for revenge still have a sounding post.
There has always been a great deal of doubt surrounding his conviction, to the point at which some of the victim's families are unconvinced he was involved. Compassionate grounds are always going to be a tricky subject, and as you say the people speaking out against it seem to be motivated more by a need for vengeance than justice. You're dead right about the U.S. giving a shit about what we have to say if the roles were reversed.
It was very shaky and I've always thought the manner of it suggested he had been served up as a scapegoat.
We're meant to be a compassionate society. Leaving someone to die in jail when they could just die in a hospital bed makes us hypocrites whenever we sound off against other nations' treatment of prisoners.
Even if he is guilty, something I doubt, the guys is at deaths door, as Emejn says, it not like he's going to mastermind the downfall of the west on his deathbed.
In a way he falls in the same box as Saddam, he may (or may not be) a terrorist, a despot an murdered a train robber, but he is also human, and a certain amount of dignity comes with that. I'm not defending anyone here, but being hung in public or left to die in a prison cell is just not humane.
Correct. The days are long past for that sort of thing. I've not seen any co-ordinated protests regarding his release in the UK whatsoever - it all appears to have been coming from the US who, quite frankly have nothing to do with the way we run our judicial system. I'm glad we didn't bow to the pressure though as that would have made even more of a mockery of our so-called soverign justice system.
TBH I see this as the UK government sucking-up to Gadafy; the precise reason why they're doing this is obscure. Could we be going to have to borrow large amounts of money off him to keep the UK economy afloat? Is it, as some have said, all about oil?
Either way it makes me deeply uneasy. Gadafy's "Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" regime is rotten to the core - it has had terrorism in its DNA for 30 years and I see no reason to believe it to be in any way trustworthy.
You're quite right about the regime but if it's not trustworthy (and I agree with you there) why do you think they served up the person who was actually responsible?
The man was released on independant medical grounds. As much as I'd like to believe there's a conspiracy here I really don't think there is - too many ifs buts and maybes. Though if there is it probably has a lot to do with Mandelson's cosies that I mentioned earlier!
I rather think Libya served up Megrahi as a fall-guy to divert the West's attention and distract them from digging any deeper into the Libyan government's true involvement in Pan Am 103. It's the old thing about if a group of divers are being attacked by a shark, stabbing one of your group will provide enough of a distraction to allow the others to swim away safely.
My consideration is that he is actually guilty - but that he was deeply naiive and didn't fully appreciate what his political masters were setting him up for. When the heat was turned up on the Libyan government, they cut Megrahi loose to cover their own arses. I don't agree with letting him go.
That's definitely a plausable explanation. I don't know whether he is guilty or innocent but I certainly believe the conviction was shaky at best. It was all rather convenient - hell even the chap who speaks for the relatives of those killed in Lockerbie village doesn't believe he was involved in the way suggested.
Either way he will go to the grave a convicted murderer - just that grave will be in Libya now.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the conviction was unsafe either.
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As for his conviction well yeah I am unconvinced by it now, he only got put inside on some shaky evidence forwarded by the CIA/FBI. Guilty? Possibly not. I could have seen him getting out on appeal eventually anyway, much to Americas dismay.
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Compassionate grounds are always going to be a tricky subject, and as you say the people speaking out against it seem to be motivated more by a need for vengeance than justice.
You're dead right about the U.S. giving a shit about what we have to say if the roles were reversed.
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We're meant to be a compassionate society. Leaving someone to die in jail when they could just die in a hospital bed makes us hypocrites whenever we sound off against other nations' treatment of prisoners.
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In a way he falls in the same box as Saddam, he may (or may not be) a terrorist, a despot an murdered a train robber, but he is also human, and a certain amount of dignity comes with that. I'm not defending anyone here, but being hung in public or left to die in a prison cell is just not humane.
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Either way it makes me deeply uneasy. Gadafy's "Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" regime is rotten to the core - it has had terrorism in its DNA for 30 years and I see no reason to believe it to be in any way trustworthy.
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The man was released on independant medical grounds. As much as I'd like to believe there's a conspiracy here I really don't think there is - too many ifs buts and maybes. Though if there is it probably has a lot to do with Mandelson's cosies that I mentioned earlier!
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My consideration is that he is actually guilty - but that he was deeply naiive and didn't fully appreciate what his political masters were setting him up for. When the heat was turned up on the Libyan government, they cut Megrahi loose to cover their own arses. I don't agree with letting him go.
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Either way he will go to the grave a convicted murderer - just that grave will be in Libya now.
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