starfish
No dialogue. Just plot.
But if he hadnt agreed to drop his appeal he would have died in jail.
Release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi or not?
- Thread starter weltweit
- Start date
But if he hadnt agreed to drop his appeal he would have died in jail.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
Nope, it was confirmed that this is not the case.
starfish
No dialogue. Just plot.
So his appeal would have been over in 3 months?
weltweit
Well-Known Member
What, are you saying that they confirmed to al-Megrahi that if he dropped his appeal he would be released? before the justice secretary had made his decision?
spring-peeper
Well-Known Member
I wonder what happens if he goes into remission and gets to live for several more years.
Does Scotland ask for him back?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Gaddafi laughs at this idea
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
No, it was confirmed that his release was not dependent upon his appeal being dropped. A release on huimanitarian grounds would trump it anyway. I think a proper look into the dropping of the appeal would show a much less formal arrangement.
starfish
No dialogue. Just plot.
Oh right.
But it doesnt give him the chance to clear his name which is what he also wanted.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
Which is why i'm inclined to think that it was a less than formal approach. Otherwise we'd have a legal system that actually denied the right to an appeal on the basis of compassionate release.
quimcunx
imprimeo, lamino, distribuo
I have no idea what point you are trying to make with regard to what I have said on this thread.
spring-peeper
Well-Known Member
I would honestly like an answer on this one. I know that Scotland will be getting routine medical reports on his condition.
imo - a couple of months, almost acceptable - several years, back into the Scottish jail.
My apologies if I'm getting the wrong end of the stick. It did seem that you were joining the 'he's been convicted and that's the end of the matter' camp.
quimcunx
imprimeo, lamino, distribuo
No. I don't know whether he did it or not. I haven't seen much on the evidence for or against. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't. I think he should have been released whether he was guilty or not.
I can't see where I said that. My point was that whether guilty or not he has been convicted. That conviction has not been overturned and the minister does not have it in his power to overturn court judgements on his whim, hunch, or even carefully researched considerations, but only through due process. Either they had to wait for the appeal to find differently or speak of the case as him being a convicted murderer who was being released on grounds of compassion not grounds of a miscarriage of justice.
rioted
redundant
I think it was. Compassionate grounds can't be used if there are ongoing judicial procedures.
rioted
redundant
If they could, Saunders(?) of Guiness infamy would still be doing time - the only man ever to recover from Alzheimers disease.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher 🧀
This isn't correct: under Scots law, the termination of an ongoing appeal is not in any way required for compassionate release to be granted.
Of course that is not to say that pressure might not have been applied for the appeal to be dropped for other, more political, reasons. But it wasn't necessary under Scots Law. (The logic is that compassionate release is not a comment on the safety of the conviction; a released prisoner remains guilty, and the conviction is not quashed).
I would have preferred the appeal to have gone ahead. Indeed, there is no legal impediment to it being resumed.
In today's Herald, Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, was murdered in the Lockerbie bombing, writes in support of the release:
I agree with him. I also agree with him that the appeal should still go ahead:
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
The appeal had to be dropped because he couldn't be released beyond the jurisdiction of the court, if he still had a res before the court.
The appeal that was dropped was his second appeal. The first appeal, of the conviction, was denied. The appeal that was dropped, was of sentence.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I asked a friend of mine - who's not particularly political, but isn't daft - who'd not heard of the case before, to read one of the BBC pieces on it and tell me what she thought. She read it for a bit and said "yeah that looks dodgy, looks like a fit-up".
weltweit
Well-Known Member
The part of the shirt that was apparently wrapped around the bomb that was traced to a shop that was traced to Megrahi via the dodgy witness bothers me. Surely a shirt in a neighbouring suitcase would be indistinguishable from a shirt in the same suitcase as the bomb.
The point is simple: reality is what reality is ... but, as we have no way of knowing reality, we have to substitute a man-made system of establishing what actually happened. That is our syste of justice. Imperfect thoug it is, we have said that if someone is acquitted, they are not guilty, end of. If you believe in that you cannot say that someone who is convicted is innocent. If, despite his conviction, you argue that he should be treated as if he is innocent, you must also agree that anyone acquitted can be treated as guilty as fuck by those who think his acquittal is bollocks ...
As I've said several times, I don't take issue with the fact that this case raises a number of specific issues. I was talking generally about circumstantial cases.
Your arrogance in "knowing" what the truth is, despite not having access to all the evidence in any particular case, is breathtaking ...
It raises some potential questions, yes. Without knowing what, if anything, was found onpursuing that line of enquiry, it is entirely meaningless.
Link to evidence to support that statement please. (It is not consistent with what has been stated in the media).
No. It wasn't. It was against conviction.
And your point is?
Guilt is deteremined on all the evidence, not on one random media report ...
I thought about going to see the latest Harry Potter film ... but I asked a friend of mine who knew nothing about Harry Potter to read one of the reviews and tell me what she thought. She read it for a bit and said "Yeah, that looks well shite ...." so I didn't bother.
I would hope to be able to identify the contents of a suitcase containing the bomb from adjoining suitcases using the damage patterns, chemical depositions, burn patterns and othe features. I do not think this is a major issue with the evidence at all.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
And your point is?
My point was, fairly obviously, to respond in a conversational fashion agreeing with the idea that even exposure to the basic facts makes many people think there is something dodgy about it all. Not specifically connected with my remark would be that it also never gets any better. I have never heard of anybody starting off thinking "that sounds suspicious, let me look into the evidence a bit more" and ending up thinking "oh well the issues I had have been answered there, I am no longer suspicious of this verdict". Which is sort of odd given the level of detail available and the length of the case. But I suppose we can't possibly have our own opinions on the matter as we weren't there for the entire procedure.
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