INTERNATIONAL

WAS LIBYA RIGHT TO GIVE AL-MEGRAHI A HERO’S WELCOME? No, it is mockery to justice By Charles Msowoya The international rage over the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who was found guilty and convicted of bombing a Pan Am Flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie in Southern Scotland in December 1988, deepened after he was seen embracing Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli recently. Gaddafi was quoted as saying to ‘his friends’ in Scotland, the Scottish National Party, and Scottish Prime Minister, and the foreign secretary, that he praises their courage for having proved their independence in decision making despite the unacceptable and unreasonable measures that they faced. He said that Nevertheless they took this courageously right and humanitarian decision. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill confirmed earlier before the release rocked the media that al-Megrahi, was to be released and returned to Libya. The Libyan is the only man to have been brought to justice for the terrorist act which killed 270 people, all 259 on the plane and 11others on the ground. He is suffering from terminal Prostate Cancer, hence his release ‘on compassionate grounds’. The mass-murdering bomber received a grand hero's welcome in Libya recently after his release from prison in the so-called ‘compassionate’ ruling. Al-Megrahi who is a former Libyan intelligence agent stepped off a plane in Tripoli amid cheers. The crowd of thousands defied President Obama's urging that his return home be a ‘low key’ one. According to the western media waves of anguish gripped the American families of Lockerbie victims as the only person ever convicted in the deaths of their loved ones walked free. After years of wrangling and sanctions, Libya handed the former intelligence agent over for trial and he was sentenced by a special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in 2001 and he had been in a Scottish prison until he was freed. CNN reported that more than 1,000 Libyans gathered at an airport in Tripoli to welcome Megrahi home, cheering and waving national flags, despite the fact that relatives of the American victims said they had received assurances there would be no hero's welcome. In his letter to Gaddafi, addressed ‘Dear Muammar,’ British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said a high-profile return would cause further unnecessary pain for the families of the Lockerbie victims. He added that it would also undermine Libya's growing international reputation. Meanwhile, Megrahi's release has turned politically radioactive for the Britain and Scottish governments. It has also led to a serious falling out with the US with Federal Bureau Investigations (FBI) Director Robert Mueller publicly accusing Mr. MacAskill of making a mockery of the rule of law. MacAstill dismissed the international furor over the Libyan’s release, saying people should know that he would not be doing anything apart from going to hospital and waiting to die. Doctors said he may have less than three months to live. But most individuals and countries like the United States of America and Britain still feel that the release of the bomber is a mockery to justice and something that may encourage terrorism. Above everything it seems to be the hero’s welcome which al-Megrahi received upon his arrival in Libya on a private jet which has attracted this global outrage and has since pinned the Scottish government at the receiving end of all criticism for freeing the bomber. At one point in time the Lockerbie bomber and his extended family were captured sitting with the Libyan leader, a reception which came amid mounting Western outrage over the bomber’s welcome. According to the BBC, speaking on a Libyan television, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son said former British Prime Minister Tony Blair raised the Megrahi case repeatedly to smooth the way for British firms to tap into Libya's energy reserves, a claim Blair dismissed. He said on CNN that there was no deal whatsoever with the Libyan government when he was in power to arrange the release of al-Megrahi. Initially Libya agreed to give the bomber a low key reception after his release from jail according to Scotland’s justice minister, but broke the deal by giving the Libyan terrorist a hero’s welcome. The minister also defended the decision to free al-Megrahi maintaining that he was released purely on compassionate grounds and nothing else. He is also said to have written to the Libyan leader asking him to ‘act with sensitivity’. Instead, Megrahi was given a hero's welcome in scenes described by President Obama as ‘highly objectionable’. But whatever the matter, the fact remains that the Libyan government was adversely wrong to give al-Megrahi a hero’s welcome. How would a terrorist be given a hero’s welcome? Was he being termed a hero after slaughtering 270 people? Libya’s action to accord al-Megrahi a hero’s welcome makes a mockery of justice. It gives comfort to terrorists around the world as they will think there is no such thing as life imprisonment if one of the world’s biggest terrorists has been released from prison. And the mockery is deepened by the fact that the kind of reception was not just a normal one but a high-profile one. Megrahi did not deserve any mercy, but by releasing him on compassionate grounds, the Scots did a good thing and the Libyan government should have avoided treating him as a hero. In fact the reception on its own is so much bigger than the bombing itself to the victims’ families. He deserved to die in a jail cell because that was his punishment. What is the essence of life imprisonment when there is a prospect of one being allowed to die at home? And to make matters worse, why would there be life imprisonment when one can be released and be given a hero’s welcome? If one of these horrible incidents happens again, one of the reasons will be that punishment for terrorists is not being fully carried out. Some crimes are so horrific that there should never be any consideration given to anyone convicted of one. It is situations like this which are one of the key reasons many people favor the death penalty. Those who are against the death penalty in different countries often argue that it is better to let a mass killer rot in prison for the rest of his life but then the al-Megrahi scenario satirizes everything. He should have been allowed to rot in prison and this would mean more if he really did rot there for his entire life, with absolutely no chance of ever getting out, not even for medical treatment. The fact that he is terminally ill, to me, is no reason to give him a hero’s welcome. Either way, he is dying a more comfortable death than any of his victims. He is dying prepared while his victims died unprepared. I think the families of the people this monster murdered would have preferred that their loved ones had the luxury of dying in their own beds too. He deserved to die in prison the convict that he is, not on his bed a free man that he is not. But because he has been released, then the last remedy was that he should be given a low key reception. That is why the Obama administration and the FBI and the victims’ families have slammed the move. In his letter to the Scottish Justice Minister seeking that he should be allowed to go home, al-Megrahi said that whilst everything was being done to make his time there in prison as comfortable as possible, the personnel within the prison were hardly equipped to deal with the many aspects of his terminal illness. He added that in his view imprisonment was hastening his decline. He dared say that because he knew that his release was a possible thing and this is an irony to the Scottish justice system which has been further mocked by the hero’s welcome al-Megrahi received in Libya. I can respect any institution that gives compassion to those who are in dire need of it but in the case of al-Megrahi it is compassion enough that he was allowed to live instead of being executed. And of course part of the punishment should have been that he should die in a foreign land. He has been given joy at the end of his life by being freed and given a hero’s welcome back home. He did not deserve joy, even in dying, and certainly not a hero's welcome. Yes, he is their son By James Munyapa. On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am plane mysteriously exploded over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie causing the death of 270 people from 21 countries, including 189 Americans. The tragedy provoked worldwide indignation. Then in 1991, two Libyan nationals were charged with the bombing and based largely on circumstantial evidence, a panel of Scottish judges pronounced Abdel Basset al-Megrahi guilty. Al-Megrahi and the Libyan government have been protesting their innocence all along until al-Megrahi was released recently on compassionate grounds. After suffering disciplinary UN sanctions which froze overseas Libyan bank accounts and prevented the import of spare parts needed for the country's oil industry, Libya agreed to pay $2.7 billion to victims' families on condition that the pay-out would not be deemed an admission of guilt. In other words, Libya made the pay-out just in the interest of peace. Al-Megrahi was serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison, but earlier this year the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled there might have been a miscarriage of justice on the basis of lost or destroyed evidence. Some time back it was reported in the western media that a key piece of material evidence used by prosecutors to implicate Libya in the Lockerbie bombing emerged as a probable fake, with allegations of "international political conspiracy and careless investigative work. Basset is suffering from prostate cancer and the Scottish government thought it wise to release him so that he should wait for his death in his home country, Libya. The United States strongly condemned the decision by Scottish authorities to free the Libyan saying there was no justification for his release. The Scottish government said al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, was freed on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer. Although al-Megrahi’s release received objections from different countries including the United States of America, it is his hero’s welcome in his home country which has not gone down well with most people. But his release still is the root cause of everything. Us President Barrack Obama said his administration conveyed its objections to the Scottish government that al-Megrahi was released because he is terminally ill and should be permitted to die in his home country. Back in Libya, al-Megrahi received a hero's welcome just hours after being released from a Scottish jail. The 57-year-old Libyan left Scotland’s Greenock Prison and arrived in the Libyan capital on an Airbus private jet. Thousands of Libyans wore T-shirts with his picture and others waved Libyan and Scottish flags while Libyan songs blared. He was greeted by large enthusiastic crowds at the airport in Tripoli, according to the western media. And it is this kind of welcome which has invoked the anger of countries like the US. The US administration does not find enough substantiation why someone who was convicted of slaughtering 270 people should be given a hero’s welcome. Is he a hero for what he did? The US wants to know? And the question is whether or not Libyans were right to give basset a hero’s welcome. Speaking in Washington, President Obama urged Libya not to give a hero’s welcome to al-Megrahi, yet just hours later the freed prisoner arrived in Tripoli to a festive greeting by thousands. In an interview from the White House with Philadelphia-based radio talk show host Michael Smerconish, Obama said his administration had been in contact with the Scottish government where they indicated that they objected to al-Megrahi`s release. Obama added that his administration thought it was a mistake and that they were now in contact with the Libyan government shortly before al-Megrahi landed in Tripoli that the Libyan should not be “welcomed in some way but instead should be under house arrest.” Many Libyans still see al-Megrahi as an innocent scapegoat of the West but White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called him a mass murderer. And so far the relationship between Libya and the US has been adversely affected because the US feels Libya has made the worst mistake by giving al-Megrahi a high-profile welcome. But, I, personally believe that the Libyan government was absolutely right to give al-Megrahi a hero’s welcome. They could not reject him in his own home country, especially at such a time when he is undergoing a kind of pain that is killing him. We all know that a dying person requires the best kind of comfort in his dying days. That is why the Scottish government thought it wise to release al-Megrahi so that he should die in his home country. It is better to die among your own folks than among strangers. And despite any evil man might have done, it is good that during his dying days, he is given all the comfort. After all, he is a dying man and life to him will soon be meaningless. Then why abuse someone who is dying. This new source of potential tension between the US and Libya comes amid a turn in official relations. The North African country, which was once the target of US airstrikes in 1986, has been on speaking terms with the United States only recently after four decades as a bitter antagonist. And no wonder the US wants the antagonism that was there between itself and Libya to restart, otherwise there is nothing peculiar about al-Megrahi’s hero’s welcome apart from the fact that he deserved it where he belonged. Your child still remains your child no matter what others think of him. You cannot reject him just because you are being pressurized by others. Even if he wrongs you in what seems to be an unforgivable way, you still forgive him and move ahead with him as your child. A mother cannot squirm at the puke of her own baby. Hence Libya was ultimately justified to give its freed child a hero’s welcome. And above everything it is the Scottish government which showed the greatest prudence by releasing al-Megrahi. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that it was "deeply distressing" and "deeply upsetting" to see the convicted Lockerbie bomber get a hero's welcome in Libya. US president Barrack Obama said the cheering, flag-waving welcome that the convicted bomber received in Libya after being released from a life sentence was highly objectionable. These people seem to forget that if all the blame has to be assessed, them the Scottish government should be the worst entity to blame in the whole scenario, because it would be ridiculous to expect the Libyan government to receive al-Megrahi as though they are receiving a stranger. Britain and the US are attacking the aftermath instead of attacking the cause because they know that the cause is perfect. By releasing al-Megrahi the Scottish government has shown that it is above barbarianism. Wielding the blade of justice is a responsibility not to be taken lightly. The Libyan was charged and convicted and justice was vindicated. He was given a life sentence which means he was supposed to die in prison. And his release does not necessarily mean that he has been paroled. He was supposed to die in prison and he is now dying in a situation in which no one can claim he is free. Hence it was imperative that he be given a warm welcome back home. Scotland as well has to make its own decisions without being influenced by any country, not even America. On top of that should you bother to look up the facts that are there concerning al-Megrahi’s trial and subsequent conviction you will find that he was convicted on the flimsiest of evidence and in my opinion he is nothing more than a political scapegoat who has maintained his innocence from the start. But anyway, he has been released on compassionate grounds! And Scotland is responsible for making what it believes is the correct judicial decision. How others react once that decision is made is irrelevant to whether the judicial decision was correct or not. In other words, just because the US and Britain have expressed their objection towards al-Megrahi’s release does not necessarily mean Scotland necessarily made the wrong decision to release this prisoner. And Libya should not have been attacked for giving its citizen a hero’s welcome. There is no one in the world who would not want to celebrate the release of his child who was being imprisoned miles away.