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Lockerbie bomber is freed
Thursday 20th August 2009, 1:25PM BST.
Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi was today freed from his Scottish prison cell on compassionate grounds.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said Megrahi is suffering from a terminal illness that cannot be treated.
He will return to Libya a free man.
Mr MacAskill had already ruled out a prisoner transfer request from the Libyan government.
He said Scotland would not forget the terror attack, and the “pain and sadness would remain forever”, but he said compassion and mercy must be shown.
Read the full story in today’s Shropshire Star.
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I very much doubt he did it. And even if he did it would be at the behest of ‘agencies’ that don’t observe national borders while playing an international power game thats obviously not in our interest to know about. I expect the dailies to kick and scream
as designed but this is small potatoes in reality.
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There are those in the United States intelligence service which are now trying to blame Iran for the bombing and not Libya. If the appeal was not dropped by Al-Megrahi, this document would have appeared in court. What I await is when Al-Megrahi returns to Libya, will the War supporters in Washington try and say that they got it wrong to justify a war with Iran? 20 years ago, Gaddafi was a terrorist. Today he is a friend who gives the oil contracts to the west. It appears that large sums of money is enough to revise history.
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There have been serious doubts about this man’s guilt for many years. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but I suspect his decision to withdraw his appeal, his subsequent release, and the protests from the US are more than a little bit linked. Even if he was involved it makes me proud to be British that compassion has been allowed to prevail. As Gandhi said “An eye for an eye makes everyone blind”.
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I went to an exhibition on Friday at the Bear Steps about Shrewsbury Prison. It is very very interesting and frankly quite chilling to remember we still had the death penalty in the 1960s.
I was expecting my first child when the Lockerbie bombing happened and I felt quite emotionally affected. I know the doctor who lost his daughter Flora has been a tireless campaigner for the families that were left bereaved and he I believe has his suspicions that the wrong person may have been convicted.
The papers do seem to be making a big issue over this yet this man is dying and I for one feel more comfortable at his release than Ronald Biggs being allowed free who definately did wrong, lived a great life abroad then comes back for medical care and sympathy after making a mockery of justice.
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