A man holds a placard as the convoy carrying Libyan bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi leaves Greenock prison near Glasgow on Aug 20. (REUTERS/Nigel Roddis)Scotland today released a former Libyan agent jailed for life eight years agon for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans, because he is dying of prostate cancer.
Are you f-ing kidding me?
As a result, he ended up serving two weeks for each person he killed.
Am I missing something here? A terrorist gets released from prison because of cancer--how is that fair or right or whatever you want to call it from a judicial standpoint?
Getting cancer does not erase the devastation this man caused to hundreds of families, to an entire nation, when he blew up a plane killing almost 300 people.
And while he's rewarded for getting sick, the average person dying of cancer gets to suffer and die in utter agony--many alone and away from home--even though they haven't killed anyone or blown up any planes.
W-TF?!
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who has less than three months to live (boo, hoo), is being returned to Libya on compassionate grounds, a decision strongly criticized by the U.S., which campaigned to keep him in prison, Reuters reported.
"He is a dying man, he is terminally ill," Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill told a news conference. "My decision is that he returns home to die."
He's sick and dying. So what? At least he's not being blown up to pieces, plus he has free healthcare in jail.
A Libyan government spokesman said Megrahi was being flown home with a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, according to news reports.
Television pictures showed him being driven out of the gates of Greenock Prison in western Scotland, with a small crowd of locals booing as his convoy departed for the airport.
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi walks up the stairs to a waiting jet at Glasgow airport. (REUTERS/David Moir)"As we have expressed repeatedly to officials of the government of the United Kingdom and to Scottish authorities, we continue to believe that Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland," the White House said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released the following statement on the matter:
"The U.S. is deeply disappointed by the decision of the Scottish Executive to release Abdel Basset Mohamed al-Megrahi who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which took the lives of 270 persons, including 189 Americans. We have continued to communicate our long-standing position to UK government officials and Scottish authorities that Megrahi should serve out the entirety of his sentence in Scotland. Today, we remember those whose lives were lost on December 21, 1988 and we extend our deepest sympathies to the families who live each day with the loss of their loved ones due to this heinous crime."
Megrahi, 57, is the only person convicted for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in mid-air above the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
He lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, but a Scottish review of his case ruled in 2007 that there might have been a miscarriage of justice. "Might have been"? What does that mean? Is he innocent? If so, then why was he still in prison?
No hero's welcome
Right: A military helicopter flies overhead as a Scottish policeman stands near the cockpit of Pan Am flight 103 in a farmer's field east of Lockerbie, in December 1988. (REUTERS/Greg Bos)
Relatives of many of the 189 American victims thought Megrahi should have served his full life sentence in prison after being convicted of Britain's deadliest terrorist attack, Reuters reported
Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103, a group that represents the families of U.S. victims, said he understood the Libyan government had promised that Megrahi would not "go back to a hero's welcome."
"There is going to be no dancing in the end-zone, as the expression goes," he told Reuters.
So what if he doesn't get a parade? He's still being released from a life sentence because of cancer and not because he turned out to be innocent.
The families of many of the Britons killed in the bombing were never convinced by the strength of the evidence against him and thought he should be allowed to go home to die.
Megrahi is likely to be warmly welcomed by Gaddafi, who has moved closer to the Western mainstream since dropping his nuclear weapons program in 2003.
I'm sorry, folks, but I'm as shocked by Scotland's decision as the U.S. government.
I think compassion is a noble, wonderful thing. However, while my compassion for the sick is unmeasurable, how can I empathize with terrorists who destroy people's lives and turn nations into victims? Call me unChrist-like, but I can't.
Maybe I'm just a bad person.
Sources: Reuters, CNN, BNO
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