"Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London's Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On Wednesday 21 December 1988, the aircraft flying this route—a Boeing 747-121 named Clipper Maid of the Seas—was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. Eleven people in Lockerbie, southern Scotland, were killed as large sections of the plane fell in and around the town, bringing total fatalities to 270. As a result, the event has been named by the media as the Lockerbie Bombing.
In 2001, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a Libyan, was convicted of involvement in the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 20 August 2009, the Scottish Government released him on compassionate grounds to return to Libya as he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and had a life expectancy of less than 3 months." (from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 .)
Okay, so many of you might have heard that Al Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds, a decision made by Kenny MacAskill, an MSP and backed by Scotland's First Minister (and SNP leader) Alex Salmond. In Scotland there has been a mixed reaction from the media and the public. Many say Megrahi should perish in prison, a lot are also showing support to MacAskill's decision. Gordon Brown, the UK's Prime Minister, is trying to stay out of it as it was a Scottish situation, but Barack Obama, the President of the USA, has openly criticized the release of a convicted mass-murdered.
The Libyan government assured the Scottish Government that Megrahi's return to Libya would be a low-key affair, but he was greeted with a "hero's welcome" by Colonel Gaddafi's son.
There are Scotland-boycotting groups appearing on social networking sites such as Facebook, many of them set up by Americans for Americans. I can understand that they may feel justice hasn't been done since most of the victims of the atrocity 21 years ago were American citizens, but it was dealt with under Scots law and it was ultimately a Scottish decision to be made.
I would just like to know what everyone's views are, particularly those of our Scottish, English, Libyan and American members, especially those who were old enough to remember this event in 1988.
My personal opinion, is that it was very wrong of the Libyans to greet him like a hero, but I stand by MacAskill's decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Yes, this man was convicted of the murder of 270 people, and I completely understand the people who say "He should rot in jail, why should he be allowed to die in peace when he didn't grant that to his victims?". The word compassion refers to the ability to detect and want to solve another's pain, and the fact that Kenny McAskill showed compasdion to a killer, the very person who seemed to so completely lack compassion for his fellow humans 21 years ago, higlights the differences between a very bad human and a good human.
I think one of the main problems Obama, and indeed many people, have is that they see the release of Megrahi as a pardon, which it absolutely is not. The guy has 3 months to live, and I personally think it was the right, if a very difficult, decision to send him home to die in the presence of his family.
