Slainte
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2007
- Messages
- 1,061
- Reaction score
- 315
- Location
- Scotland
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
While I do not believe the judicial process should be circumvented, though it should be expedited to the maximum extent possible, I do believe that Mr. Megrahi should receive appropriate medical treatment and his family should have full access to visit him.
You are generally well informed, so I do not want to sound patronising, however I wonder if you understand the politics at play here. If Megrahi is transferred based on a UK-Libyan treaty from 2004, he will end up in a Libyan prison where his family will be allowed to visit him. He may of course also be released by the Libyan authorities on his return, despite what thy will say. This is probably what Westminster and, to a lesser extent, Washington want as the terms of this treaty mean Megrahi's ongoing appeal will be dropped. This appeal could cause a lot of embarrassment for the UK government!
What the BBC say the Scottish government, who have jurisdiction here, are planning to do is release Megrahi on "compassionate ground". This would not end the ongoing appeal. The new Scottish government should not really care what the appeal would find, however these announcement lead me to believe they think the appeal will favour Megrahi. The Scottish government do not want to be responsible for forcing a "somewhat" innocent man to die in jail, nor do they have any intention of saving the face of the Westminister government.
The third option is of course that Megrahi will die in jail, in which case the appeal will probably continue after his death and it could lead to embarssment for both governments if it exonerates Megrahi.