33 Months

The medics said he had less than 3 months to live. In the event, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie Bombing, died yesterday exactly 33 months after he was released by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

I am not, to say the very least, an admirer of MacAskill's. Anyone who has presided so lackadaisically over the appalling conditions at Cornton Vale Women's Prison while prioritising attacks on the UK Supreme Court deserves every bit of opprobrium they get. On Megrahi, though, he got it right in the decision to release him, if not in the process. I wrote on this extensively at the time, when Scotland was catapulted into the international spotlight.

I am far from convinced of Megrahi's guilt. I hope one day that we will know the truth about what happened.

Willie Rennie was right to say yesterday that Megrahi's death was no cause for celebration.He went on to call for an enquiry to establish the truth of what happened:

Although this is an end to a chapter of one of the worst terrorist events in Scotland there should be no celebration that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has died.

Instead it should act as spur to establish the facts, including whether crucial forensic evidence was withheld from the trial

We should really pay most attention, though, to what Dr Jim Swire has to say. His dignity and compassion in the face of the worst adversity is an example to all of us. He lost his daughter, Flora, when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie. I'm not sure I could have maintained his rational and open minded pursuit for the truth. Yesterday, he said:

"It's a very sad event,”

“I met him for the last time face-to-face in Tripoli last December, when he was very sick and in a lot of pain.

“But he still wanted to talk about how information which he and his defence team had accumulated could be passed to me after his death.

“That’s an amazing thing for a man who knows he’s dying to do.

“Right up to the end he was determined – for his family’s sake, he knew it was too late for him – that the verdict against him should be overturned.

“He wanted that for the sake of those relatives who had come to the conclusion after studying the evidence that he wasn’t guilty – and I think that’s going to happen.”

Megrahi's demise was painful and protracted.  His 33 months at home in Tripoli was very difficult for him indeed. His life may be over, but the quest for truth must not end with him. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission identified no less than six reasons why there may have been a miscarriage of justice in his case. The families of the victims deserve to know what really happened.

Cameron to make statement on Megrahi - a reminder of what Scottish Labour said at the time

I don't know what David Cameron is going to say when he makes his statement about the release of Megrahi later, but the BBC reports that it will be very embarrassing for Scottish Labour, who could not have been more condemnatory of Kenny MacAskill at the time.


Update: more than speculation, if the Herald is to be believed - they say the report by Gus O'Donnell says Labour did all it could to help Libya secure the release of Megrahi. You have to ask yourself what Iain Gray would have done if he had been the First Minister who had to make that decision.


For the record, I totally supported Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds at the time and wrote extensively about it. As far as I am concerned it was the right thing to do then and I can't imagine anything changing my mind on that.


I don't think I'll like much of what David Cameron has to say as he's been very critical of Megrahi's release in the past, but that's not really what today's about.


I've reproduced in full the speech made by Labour's leader in the Scottish Parliament (who, emphatically, is not Labour's leader in Scotland. That's Ed Miliband) on the day Parliament was recalled to discuss Megrahi's release. I also wrote about the bigger debate a week or so later here where I described Labour's contribution as an "erratic delivery of a poisonous argument".


I always thought Holyrood Labour's position was less to do with principle and more to do with trashing the SNP. Today may well turn out to be exruciatingly embarrassing for them.


So, from the Official Report, here's Gray's speech in full.


Iain Gray (East Lothian) (Lab): I thank the Cabinet Secretary for Justice for his statement and for making it available in advance.

Last week, the Scottish Government made a wrong decision, in the wrong way, with the wrong consequences. The Scottish judicial process has compassion running through it. That is why we have no death penalty, that is why we have the right of appeal and parole, and that is why prisoners can apply for compassionate release. However, that compassion is at every point tempered by justice and by the rights of victims and wider society. That is why the final judgment in this case was rightly the minister's. He had a requirement to consider an application, but not a duty to grant it.

I acknowledge that the decision was a difficult one, but does the cabinet secretary understand how much it has angered the silent majority in Scotland? Does he understand how ashamed we were to see our flag flying to welcome home a convicted bomber? Does he understand how astonished we were when he visited a convicted murderer in prison? He quoted Jack Straw to justify that, but what Jack Straw told the Joint Committee on Human Rights was that

"A prisoner … would be invited to make written representations."

I have the letter here. Will the cabinet secretary now admit that it was his decision and his alone to visit al-Megrahi? He had no obligation to do so.

After that visit, al-Megrahi dropped his appeal. Will the cabinet secretary tell us whether there was any discussion of that in his meeting and—for the avoidance of doubt—will he publish his note of that meeting? How does the justice secretary explain the fact that the media told us a full week before the formal decision exactly how and when al-Megrahi would be released?

Surely the prisoner transfer application could have been ruled out because of the two on-going appeals that applied to the case. Instead, however, Mr MacAskill dragged that decision out over the 90-day recommended period and then rejected the application for prisoner transfer because the American families believed that the sentence would be served in Scotland. How does he think those families felt when he acknowledged in one breath that their views that the sentence would be completed in Scotland meant that al-Megrahi could not be released to a Libyan prison, but in the next breath he sent al-Megrahi home to freedom in Tripoli on licence, his sentence not commuted?

The cabinet secretary has mishandled the whole affair from start to finish. Between the scenes of triumph in Tripoli and the pain and anger at home and abroad, is there nothing that Mr MacAskill now regrets about 

A Morning at the Pantomime - Holyrood Megrahi Debate misses the mark

So, our Parliament gathers to scrutinise one of the biggest decisions ever taken by a Scottish Minister. Yes, the mood is going to be tense, but you would expect an air of industry, of gravity. You expect the contributions to be full of detailed analysis and careful consideration. You would think that everyone would absolutely be on their best behaviour, knowing that the rest of the UK and potentially America is watching.

This is a Parliament that usually produces some quality when the chips are down. In its ten years it's done some great work to pass some great legislation, such as abolishing tuition fees, the smoking ban, a fair voting system for our Councils and giving mothers the right to breastfeed in public. The contributions of MSPs from all sides working together have made these laws better. We have good reason to take pride in Holyrood.

Unfortunately, our MSPs can occasionally be relied upon to behave with all the decorum of a roomful of 2 year olds fighting over a single bag of sweeties and today was one of these occasions. It was as if the nation had dressed its parliamentarians up in their best clothes for the big occasion and crossed its fingers and hoped for the best that they would be on their best behaviour.

It didn't take long for the fun and games to start. You would have thought that Alex Salmond, as First Minister, would see for himself a certain responsibility to ensure that the debate started on the correct note of solemnity, of gravity. I am not immune to the man's many charms and talents. At his best he can be funny, engaging and persuasive, but, like the girl with the curl in the centre of her forehead, when he's bad, boy is he horrid! He can be boorish, aggressive and more interested in showmanship than substance. Today, unfortunately, was not a good day. Before the debate had even started, he was on his feet cheekily asking if it would be in order for Labour to amend their motion given the developments overnight (of Bill Rammell confirming that Brown didn't want Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail). It was blatant political posturing, and you could actually feel the atmosphere in the Chamber, even diluted through the television, turn ugly and hostile. He did himself no favours, and I count myself as being on his side for the purposes of this debate. He certainly doesn't make it easy for people to take his side, sometimes.

We then had Kenny MacAskill propose his motion which he did competently except for one significant point. I think from what he said, and I'll edit this posting and put in the exact words, that there is sufficient reason to doubt whether Megrahi was advised that he did not need to drop his appeal for his compassionate release application to be considered. Like many, I would have preferred to see that appeal come to fruition. It also seems that Kenny MacAskill couldn't really remember what was said at the meeting. Surely all this should have been properly recorded. He did make one very good point though - telling Parliament that no compassionate release application where the evidence presented was in favour had ever been turned down by a Minister.

Richard Baker followed for Labour and to be honest, he was lamentable. All he seemed to be interested in doing was getting the SNP rather than properly examining the issue. His erratic delivery of a poisonous argument did him no credit.

Things started to improve after that. Bill Aitken for the Tories talked a lot of rubbish about how Megrahi could have been cared for in Scotland - completely ignoring the fact that his family were in Libya - but he did seem to at least get the tone right.

It had been a bad start, but it started to seriously get better from this point on. I always expect great things from Lib Dem Justice spokesperson Robert Brown. I might not always agree with him, and I wouldn't have voted for his amendment today, but I totally respect what he had to say. He made some very serious and measured points about whether the Minister had been properly advised, and whether he had read and followed all the guidance on compassionate release. It was a valid point to make, and one which never really got a proper answer. It did highlight a flaw within the process which I think a future Justice Minister would do well to learn from. Unfortunately, that's as far as I got with his speech because the tv coverage stuttered to a halt and he'd finished by the time it came back on.

Patrick Harvie got it spot on - pointing out that the features of the justice system lauded by Labour as being as far as compassion should extend, parole and appeals, were actually the bare minimum that you'd expect.

Elaine Murray, the MSP for Lockerbie gave a passionate and emotional account of the effect of the events of 21 December 1988 on the town. She felt very strongly that MacAskill, if he was taking representations from the US Families, should have actually met the people of Lockerbie who might not have lost anyone in the incident but were still traumatised by the events of that night. She described the account of one woman who had contacted her who had been terrified for herself and her 3 month old baby as the plane fell out of the sky. It was appropriate that Parliament should hear these accounts so that the people of Lockerbie could at least feel that someone was taking notice of them. Jim Hume, the Lib Dem MSP for South of Scotland echoed this call.

My own MSP, Angela Constance, also gave a solid and worthwhile contribution. Others from the SNP benches did the usual toadying Government bench stuff, but she actually had some different and good points to make. She talked about how she'd been around the constituency listening to people's views and she got the impression that most people were calm about it whether they agreed with MacAskill's decision or not. I'd say she was spot on with that. She also pointed out that Hillary Clinton, although she'd condemned the Scottish Government's decision, had also met with Gadaffi's National Security Adviser.

Michael McMahon started his speech with some low political blows and I was just about to leave the room in disgust to make a cup of tea when he started to take Kenny MacAskill to task about the "Higher Power" comments in his earlier statement. I'm glad somebody did - although McMahon didn't do it quite as well as Kelvin.

Other contributions which impressed me came from Dr Ian McKie, who, as a GP will hav treated many Cancer patients and will have witnessed at first hand how quickly things can change and how a condition can deteriorate, and Shirley Anne Somerville whose speech was pretty anodyne but at least got some of the good international press for the decision on the Official Report.

The end of the debate was not conducted in such a principled tone, though. Rather than giving Kenny MacAskill the chance to respond to the debate and answer the many valid questions that had been raised, Salmond decided to do his usual pugnacious grandstanding, throwing political punch after political punch was just not appropriate. Certainly, he'd had to listen to the same sort from the other side, but I'd hoped he'd rise above it. He said at the beginning of his speech that he'd respond to the political rubbish first and then the serious points - but he never got to the serious stuff

While Salmond ended the debate badly, I was determined not to end this posting on a negative note. I'd say that the man of the match was again Malcolm Chisholm, though clearly and calmly sticking by his principles and stating that if it was not a free vote he'd back the Government. Exactly the sort of principled stand you'd expect from someone who has shown such courage and wisdom before. I think that many people across Scotland, across the political spectrum, will admire what he did today.

I hope that there is a chance to move on, now. Parliament has now had its say and the Government has been, unfairly in my view, defeated.

A tasty dish of red herring - what do the letters on Lockerbie mean?

The Scottish Government and the UK Justice Ministry have been releasing documents relating to the release of Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie Bomber.

The Sunday Times this week suggested that the UK Government went back on a commitment to the Scottish Government that it would attempt to obtain an exclusion from the proposed Prisoner Transfer Agreement for Al Megrahi, so that there would be no obligation for him to be returned to serve his sentence in Libya. This they did in what they said was the national interest, ie lots of money for BP for oil exploration in Libya.

That, as far as we can see from the correspondence is pretty much the case. It looks to me like Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill had a fit when they saw what the proposed PTA involved, which MacAskill confirmed in his statement on 20th August. The Scottish Government asked the UK Government to negotiate an exclusion. Jack Straw went to the Libyans and asked very nicely if Al Megrahi could be excluded. They said "No." Then Jack Straw decided for whatever reason that it wasn't worth pursuing and gave up, albeit reassuring the Scottish Government that they would have the final say on any application.

What I think this means is that it is entirely hypocritical of the Scottish Labour Party to take such a hard line against the decision made by MacAskill. If Jack Straw didn't think that an exclusion for Megrahi was worth making a fuss about, then they can't claim to have consistently opposed any actions that would make his departure from Scotland more difficult.

Now, what of the Sunday Times headline that Megrahi was "set free for oil"? The correspondence between Straw, Salmond and MacAskill proves that Straw decided against making an issue of exemption for Megrahi, but how can that be relevant when MacAskill rejected the inevitable application for transfer which came from the Libyan Government?

But then, of course, it's possible to argue his release on "compassionate grounds" might actually be a conspiracy between the UK Labour Government and the SNP Scottish Government. For that you would have to believe that Kenny MacAskill, having made strong representations on the Prisoner Transfer Agreement, would do what Jack Straw told him on the compassionate release application. No, me neither.

What the Sunday Times is conveniently forgetting as it tries to paint a sensationalist picture of events is that, actually, there was a darned good reason for Megrahi to be released - that he was terminally ill with a short prognosis of around 3 months. Another darned good reason is that his family were not in a leafy Glasgow suburb, but back in Libya, and had been for the last 7 months because of, get this, "their visa restrictions." See page 8 of this bundle of documents. Now, who controls entry into this country? That would be the UK Labour Government. I think I'd like some more information on why the Megrahi family had to go home at a time when their relation had been handed a terminal diagnosis. Why were they not allowed to stay here? Would they have been allowed back in to see him before he died? I've certainly seen applications to visit sick relatives in this country turned down for all sorts of reasons, despite the overwhelming compassionate grounds and evidence submitted so it's by no means a sure thing that they would have been.

So the Justice Secretary was presented with a medical report saying that the man had a short terminal prognosis and his family, including his 5 children, and his 95 year old mother, were thousands of miles away. All the advice he was given from doctors and social workers was that he should grant the compassionate release application.

As I write this, Nick Robinson is on the BBC trying to make a big fuss about a Libyan claim that Gordon Brown did not want to see Megrahi die in jail. For a start, I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to say. I don't think we should incarcerate terminally ill people who are about to die, no matter who they are. Brown had nothing to do with the decision, though, and he is certainly not in a position to give Kenny MacAskill orders.

In the end of the day we have a decision made to release a prisoner on compassionate grounds and the evidence justifies the decision Kenny MacAskill took.

I do think, however, that the Labour Party in general and Iain Gray in particular should just shut up. It's hypocritical to say the least to criticise MacAskill's decision when they were not prepared to make a bigger deal about an exemption from the Prisoner Transfer Agreement for Megrahi and when it was UK Visa restrictions which meant his family had to go back to Libya.

Is MacAskill in the clear, then? On the actual decision, I'd say yes, he did the right thing. No surprise there.

I'm still critical of the process and in particular of the visit he made to Megrahi, which I still say was unnecessary. As far as I know, Ministers and Secretaries of State do not visit prisoners in jail. I still do not think that MacAskill was obliged to meet him personally - and it looks from the correspondence that it was the Scottish Government that gave Megrahi the option of a visit. I want to know more about exactly what was said at that meeting and nothing that has been published today leaves us any the wiser on those points.

If I were an MSP voting in the Holyrood debate tomorrow, I would still be asking these questions and I would expect proper answers to them. However, on the principle of whether it was right to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, I would, regardless of anything any whip said to me, completely support what Kenny MacAskill did.

Not in my name

I haven't listened to the whole proceedings from this afternoon, so I'll need to look at the Official Report tomorrow. That's what happens when Parliament is recalled at school chucking out time. I heard the statement and had to leave fairly early on in the questions. My initial impression is that there was a bit too much political posturing from all sides. I'd hoped for a bit more light than we actually got, although I was impressed that Tavish did ask clear and relevant questions relating to the visit to Al Megrahi, none of which I think were adequately answered.

My view hasn't changed, though - I still believe absolutely that Kenny MacAskill made the right decision, however much he and his department cocked up on its delivery.

According to Gary Gibbon, Channel 4's political editor, in his blog, there's a plot afoot for a "Not in Scotland's Name" style campaign over the 9 days until Parliament debates the matter in full next week.

Let me tell you what I don't want done in my name:

Slagging Kenny MacAskill and the SNP for the outrageous scenes in Libya which greeted Megrahi's return. It was obvious that it would happen, despite, as MacAskill said, requests to the Libyans for them to behave with a bit of restraint, but you don't base a decision on an application for compassionate release on the expected actions of a foreign government. You would think from what was said in Parliament that he'd sent John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon to take the saltires to Tripoli themselves. Just stop it, please.

Suggesting that it might have been appropriate to send Megrahi to a hospice. How stupid an idea is that? What planet is Annabel Goldie on? Does she actually understand what the hospice movement tries to do? For a start, he wouldn't have spent all the time till he died there. Most people don't - they may have short visits, or day visits to get pain under control, but they tend not to be admitted full time until a few days before they die. And who would have been shouting loudly if Megrahi had been sent to a hospice, sending the establishment into complete turmoil for all the patients inside it? That would have worked for nobody and I can't believe they put it forward as an idea.

In a similar vein, the Tories would have been foaming at the mouth if 48 Police officers had been taken off the beat to look after Megrahi for 3 months. Can you imagine? David McLetchie should know the difference between policing a football match on a Saturday afternoon and providing round the clock protection/security for an indefinite period.

Annabel Goldie ought to be ashamed of herself for the performance of her team today. I wonder if this will mean an end to the virtual coalition they've enjoyed with the SNP for these past two years. We shall see.

What I do think needs to happen, and it would be better if Kenny MacAskill was more open about it, and didn't have to have the information dragged out of him, is for us to be told exactly what happened at that meeting in Greenock jail. I don't really get the whole business of Megrahi making his representations in person when he had his lawyer present. What I really want is a pretty much verbatim account of that meeting, which there should be. If there isn't, why on earth not? Nothing that was said today convinces me that MacAskill was obliged to have this meeting, but seeing as he did, he needs to tell us more about it.

For what it's worth, Yousuf has reported, and he admits himself it's only one poll, that only a tiny minority of people approve of his release on compassionate grounds. Jeff quotes another poll which says that 35% approve and 53% disapprove and gives more analysis on the split by each party's voters. In real life, I've found that the people I've come into contact with, and my husband feels the same, are split half and half. There's certainly not enough disapproval to warrant Iain Gray inferring that there's widespread opposition. What's more, even when people have been quite angry about it, I've found that they have been quite open to persuasion, to the idea that if we have a policy to release terminally ill prisoners, why shouldn't it apply to Megrahi?

On balance, I'm not convinced that this afternoon's early recall of Parliament was worth it. We had little new information and more heat than light. Let's hope that next week's debate has more quality about it. Let's hope we have more contributions like those of Malcolm Chisholm, Labour MSP for North and Leith, who very thoughtfully expressed his support for the compassionate release of Megrahi. I think he was the man of the match for me.

Kenny MacAskill prepares to face his critics

MSPs troop back to Holyrood this afternoon at 2.30pm to listen to a statement from Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill on his decision to release the Lockerbie Bomber on compassionate grounds. You can watch it live on their website

As I've said before, I think that this decision was absolutely the right thing to do. I've had problems with MacAskill's presentation and with the very flawed process, particularly his visit to Megrahi in prison, but does it really matter if he did the right thing in the end?

I suppose I have to imagine how I would have felt if the reverse had been the case, if he'd got the process right and decided to keep Megrahi in jail here. I'd have felt that was wrong, that he'd taken a political decision to deviate from our normal policy of releasing terminally ill prisoners with less than 3 months to live. That inconsistency would to my mind have been wrong and unfair and I'd have felt a lot more angry with him than I do now. How outrageous would it have been for someone to have been kept in prison when anybody else in the same situation would have been released just because a minister feared public disapproval or political consequences?

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Scottish Lib Dem Leader Tavish Scott on this issue. He's said that Parliament should have been recalled before the decision was made. I'm not so sure. My whole reasoning on this is that it's not and shouldn't be a political decision. A Parliamentary debate on a compassionate release application would have taken the decision from the judicial to the political much more than MacAskill's visit to Megrahi and is not the right way to go about things.

If there is to be a Parliamentary scrutiny, then the right time for that is now, after the event. Parliament shouldn't influence a judicial process, but it is there to hold the Minister who made that decision to account. I'm hoping that MSPs will use their chance to question the Minister wisely. I want to know more about Megrahi dropping his appeal, for example. He didn't have to do that and I want to be reassured that there was no suggestion to him that he should do that in order to make a favourable decision on his compassionate release application more likely. I want to see him questioned on his decision to visit Megrahi which I don't think was either necessary or wise. I'd be interested to know what, if any, communications between the UK and Scottish Governments on the issue there have been. UPDATE: I really should check out my blogroll before I write things - Scott also has a useful list of questions for Kenny

For what it's worth, I can't imagine that even if there had been any pressure from London to release Megrahi, that it would have had the slightest bit of influence on Kenny MacAskill.

While I do think that there is definitely some short term damage to Scotland's international reputation - ie, the Americans are very pissed off with us - I don't think that's really relevant either and certainly shouldn't have influenced the decision. The US goes down in my estimation every time it executes anybody but I'd still happily go there on holiday. The Labour Party has a total nerve to suggest that the SNP have damaged the reputation of Scotland when any dent in our standing will be tiny compared to the disapproval they heaped on us by invading Iraq.

While I said yesterday that the Americans' attack on the Scottish Government was unjustified, Stephen took it further with this fantastic post, exposing the inconsistencies in their argument about giving comfort to terrorists. He's also made a few wry observations about what the implications of a US boycott of Scotland would be.

The American disapproval was as predictable as Libya's horrible celebrations, but they can't really argue with a decision made on principle and policy. What Kenny MacAskill did wrong was to make that decision political by visiting Megrahi in jail. By doing so he's handed opponents of release at home and abroad a chance to fling mud that actually sticks. If MacAskill hadn't done that, he would have my unreserved support for a brave and humanitarian decision - although I'd still have cringed at the wording of some parts of his statement. While of course he deserves credit for doing the right thing, it ain't just what you do, it's the way that you do it that's important.

While I don't think he should pay with his job, he will deserve the criticism on those points he gets from MSPs this afternoon and I think he needs to take it on board with a certain amount of humility. This afternoon's proceedings are not the time for theatrics and bluff and bluster, but for serious and careful questioning of the Government.

While MSPs gather their thoughts, I hope they'll be taking note of this article in today's Scotsman which says, as I've said all along, that decisions of this nature should not be a matter for politicians.

Homecoming Tripoli style angers world

I said in my post the other day that I hoped that Libya wouldn't go over the top in its welcome to Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi when he was set free and returned to Libya. Of course that was always going to be a forlorn hope. The scenes of saltires waving, cheering and the parading of Megrahi on tv meeting Gadaffi and his relatives was cringeworthy, sickening and, sadly, entirely predictable.

Having said that, I still hold to my point of view that it was correct to send Megrahi home to die. If it's a matter of policy that people with 3 months or less to die are released, then the only thing that should be taken into consideration is the safety of the public. The Libyan Government deserves all the criticism it's getting for the way it's handled this. Gadaffi is clearly enjoying his time in the spotlight, trying to implicate everyone from Gordon Brown to Prince Andrew as he wields his wooden spoon. It's pretty vile stuff.

I watched Kenny MacAskill's statement the other day and found its length and its sermon like tone distasteful to say the least. He really didn't need to go on for the best part of half an hour. I got an absolute pasting from Jeff for a tweet that I made in response to what I felt was MacAskill overegging the pudding about Scottish people were a compassionate people. I tend to think that human beings are generally compassionate, regardless of their nationality. Here's Jeff's comment and my reply so you can judge for yourself:

"Caron momenarily lost leave of her senses with this Tweet: "two things shocked me - trying to drag UK Govt down with him and making out Scots have monopoly on humanity"

A monopoly on humanity? What on earth are you talking about? It's all the more bizarre given that Caron actually agrees with the decision taken by the Justice Minister" said Jeff

I replied:

"As you know, I think he made the right decision, but the process has been tainted by the leaks, the delays and the decision to visit Megrahi in prison which, to be honest, I don't think was adequately explained today.

I feel as well that he could have made his statement in half, a quarter, even of the half hour it took him.

I don't feel that it was necessary for him to slag off the UK Government for not participating in the transfer application consulting he did. Given the rest of the stuff he was saying, that sounds like it wasn't a goer anyway. No doubt if they had participated, he'd have found fault with what they said.

I wondered if I had been a little harsh in my tweet, which had come at the end of a very long sermon, sorry, statement, but then I looked at it again:

"In Scotland, we are a people who pride ourselves on our humanity.

"It is viewed as a defining characteristic of Scotland and the Scottish people.

I tend to view humanity as being a defining characteristic of human beings, not just those who happened to be fortunate enough to have been born north of the border.

I read MacAskill's quote out to my husband without telling him that you'd slagged his wife off in public and asked him for his opinion. He is probably the fairest person in the world and he said he felt Scotland was mentioned too many times in that sentence.

I feel that it's quite a dangerous thing if we think that just because we're Scottish we're somehow better than everyone else. I'm really proud to be Scottish, I love this country and missed it to the point of despair when I didn't live here for 11 horrid years - but lovely though the Scottish people generally are, we're no more human than the French, or Canadians, or the people from Papua New Guinea or wherever.

You may not agree with me, but I wanted to put my side of the story."

August 20, 2009 9:00 PM

Another part of MacAskill's statement that made me gag was the bit where he'd clearly been at the dictionary of religious cliches:

“However, Mr Al Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power. It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to die."

I don't believe in a "higher power" anyway, certainly not one who goes around handing out nasty diseases as punishment, but I know a guy who does. Kelvin's response to this part of MacAskill's statement was absolutely spot on.

"The notion of a God who skips about the world deciding who does and who does not get cancer is horrible. That kind of thing gives religion a bad name.

There is no God worth believing in who is so capricious."

Kenny MacAskill is taking a whole load of pain at the moment. Some of it, though understandable, is unjustified. Robert Mueller's letter is completely over the top. I can't imagine for a second that any potential terrorist will think that the Scottish judicial system is soft on them. The Americans don't understand the concept of compassionate release because they don't have it over there. I think the US penal system is way too harsh in so many ways, particularly in the way it treats vulnerable people, so I don't think we should take his criticisms too much to heart.

Where MacAskill does deserve criticism is his handling of the process. Scott at Love and Garbage did all the research and wrote this post in response to MacAskill's statement to show that there was in fact no reason for MacAskill to meet Megrahi.

I think that MacAskill may well eventually pay for making the right decision with his job. With a bit of thought, he could have avoided that. It's clear to me that by his actions he has fuelled the suggestions of deals which I doubt exist and has brought the integrity of his decision into question. In turn, that has done some unnecessary damage to Scotland's standing in the world. For that, he should take the consequences.

MacAskill and Megrahi - the decision and the aftermath

I have to be honest and say that I don't envy Kenny MacAskill. The decision he has had to make on the future of Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber is a hard one. He faces pressure from all sides.

On one hand, the irrefutable medical evidence that Megrahi has aggressive, terminal prostate cancer and has only a few months left to live. If he were anyone else, he'd have been quietly released and nobody would really be any the wiser. On the other hand, we have US politicians and even the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, requesting in no uncertain terms that he should be left in prison. The families of the 270 victims of the attack are divided - in the US, the families are indignant at the thought of release, while in this country I guess British families have had enough experience of judicial failure in the cases of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four to doubt the safety of his conviction.

We're not going to know what is going to happen until 1pm, when Kenny MacAskill makes his announcement and he's certainly going to be doing that in the glare of the international spotlight. To my mind, the right announcement would be compassionate release, as I've said before . I know that puts me a bit out of step with good people in my Party and it's only fair to mention their opposition. I disagree with Jim on this, but I understand where he's coming from. Since I wrote that posting, I've discovered that compassionate release is the usual course of action for a terminal illness of less than 3 months' prognosis. To my mind that humane prinicple should be sacrosanct and not subject to political intervention. For that reason, I think what I said in my last posting about these sorts of decisions being made by an independent body, considering the medical evidence, and risk of danger to the public alone, was justified.

There shouldn't really be a political factor in this. We shouldn't buckle to pressure from the US, nor should the decision be portrayed as one of standing up to the US. If I had lost someone I loved, I may well be spitting mad at the thought of compassion being shown to their murderer, so the families deserve our thoughts and sympathy at what will be a difficult time for them.

Having said all that, boy have the SNP completely cocked this up. If he was in a room with a locked window and an open door, it seems like Kenny MacAskill would choose to go out the window. This is where I totally agree with Tavish Scott. MacAskill took his decision from the judicial to the political the moment he set foot in Greenock jail. No way should that ever have been allowed to happen. I can't imagine what on earth he was thinking. When do Ministers ever go and visit convicted murderers in jail? There was no need for that. All MacAskill needed to have was the report from Megrahi's doctors.

Not only that, but there was the leak to the BBC a week ago saying he was going to be released, then the dropping of his appeal which posed many more questions than it answered about whether a deal had been done with him. Why on earth has this process been as drawn out as it has been? Why has the Scottish Government not been able to manage the flow of information in a more competent manner?

I suspect there will need to be full scrutiny of the way in which this decision was made at some point so that we can understand the processes involved. We need to ascertain how he came to drop his appeal. He has always maintained his innocence, and, to be honest, when the trial was going on, I had my doubts as I listened to what was presented. Wardog outlined some of the issues in what I found to be a very helpful posting on the background to all of this.

I certainly hope that if MacAskill frees Megrahi today, we are not subjected to him receiving a hero's welcome in Libya. He's not a returning hero. He would be a convicted murderer being released on compassionate grounds to spend his dying weeks with his family.

This is a day when everyone in the world will be watching Scotland and its judicial system. I think that there are clear questions over the way in which this decision, however right I think it is, has been made - and these questions could have been avoided. The SNP's incompetence on this is not going to show Scotland at its best.

UPDATE: Scott has given a link to his excellent posting on this subject in the comments but it's worth putting here. Despite chatting on Twitter for months, I'd never actually got round to visiting his blog until just now. I was impressed with what I saw, so I've added him to my blogroll.