Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Decision to Release Convicted Lockerbie Bomber Is Wrong




Last week Scottish officials released Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on "compassionate grounds." Al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 bombing (co-defendant Lamin Khalifah Fhimah was found not guilty), has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has been sent back to his native Libya to live out his final days with his family (90 days, according to Scottish sources).

I've disagreed with the the idea that this man could be released all along. In fact, on Aug. 20 I posted this to my Twitter account:

"Libyan terrorist receives hero's welcome in Tripoli? What the hell were the Scottish thinking? He deserves no compassion."


In response to my tweet, a friend sent me the link to this video:



I think perhaps he thought my tweet expressed that I was unaware of the circumstances of the release. I was not unaware. And while I generally commend persons throughout the world for various acts that demonstrate compassion toward others, even I, a New York liberal at heart, am not that liberal. I find Scotland's decision to be shocking, disappointing and wrong.

270 people lost their lives as a result of the bombing, 180 of them Americans, 35 of them students at Syracuse University.

Mark Caccavo, of New York City, was a student at Syracuse at the time. He knew 23 of the 35 students who died that day, including one he describes as a very close friend and fraternity brother.

"There were 25 people silent around the television, just watching the list of names of people who were checked in on the plane," Caccavo recalled.

Silent that is, until one fraternity brother entered, excited, his spirits high. Turns out he too was returning from a semester abroad in England and was scheduled to fly on Pan Am 103. But he caught an earlier flight in hopes of attending a big party scheduled for that night. His flight landed, he collected his luggage, rented a car and never once turned on the radio. Until he entered the fraternity house, he was completely unaware of the tragedy that had befallen his friends, classmates and so many others.

The days that followed were a blur of tears, prayer and funerals. Caccavo attended as many of the funerals as he could.

"There is nothing more heartbreaking, more heartwrenching than having a parent give a child's eulogy," he said.

Of the decision to release al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, Caccavo said he'd prefer to see him die in jail.

"My friends are all very, very angry, and it's like all the feelings you had on that fateful day were just brought back to the surface,"he said. "The families have had to live with this horrible, horrible timeline -- It took 13 years for them to get any justice, [al-Megrahi's] only been [imprisoned] for seven years, and now he's free. I feel a great anger about that. It's such an injustice."

Caccavo also said he'd like to see [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown renounce the decision or face repercussions for his failure to intervene or influence the Scottish decision.

Unfortunately, that's unlikely. Brown has washed his hands of the matter. He stated publicly that he is "repulsed"by the hero's welcome al-Megrahi received in Libya, but that the decision to release al-Megrahi was that soley of the Scottish government.

Critics, however, counter that Brown is being disingenuous at best and at worst is flat out lying. Critics say the Scottish parliment is not entirely independent of the British parliment and that Brown could have stopped the release.

But what's done is done, and in this case the Scottish have made a decision that will continue to bring pain and outrage to the families, friends and countrymen of those lost in the bombing of Pan Am 103. There truly is no justice here.

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*Up next: Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi will be staying in the U.S. in September, as he will at that time address the United Nations. It was rumored he would be pitching his tent (Bedouin style) in Englewood, N.J.




It has been confirmed he will not be staying in New Jersey after all. But Qaddafi will still be on American soil, location currently unknown.

It's a shame, really. This would be a fine time for the United States to draw a line in the sand.



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