August 2009 Archives

The hero's welcome that has greeted the return of the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdulbaset Ali Al Megrahi to his native Libya has sparked outrage in the US.
With the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill playing the villain-in-chief, America's less than diplomatic rhetoric has shown that the release of such a notorious figure threatens the stability of Britain's "special relationship" with our transatlantic cousins.
Megrahi has less than three months to live, but his release could have long term implications for the British government and our role in the American "war on terror" that so consumes the superpower's foreign policy.
While no-one in Edinburgh, London or Washington is openly questioning Megrahi's guilt, maybe they should be.
The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and the incumbent loss of 270 lives, the vast majority of those being US citizens, still represents the single worst terrorist act in the UK.
That Libya and the despotic Colonel Gaddafi are behind the crime seems possible but by no means certain, with conspiracy theorists raising questions about links between the bombing and other state terror sponsors including Iran and Syria.
However, while Megrahi is the convicted, tried and imprisoned "face" of the atrocity, there are major questions about the evidence that convicted him and whether or not he is a patsy presented to appease the US by a remorseful yet unbowed Libya.
Other theories about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 include suggestions that the aircraft was downed by Palestinian militants backed by Hizbollah, or even that the CIA was responsible for the attack to hide a drug smuggling route it had established from Europe into the US.
The diplomatic furore over Megrahi's release will surely settle down, but questions about what really happened at Lockerbie are set to continue for generations to come.