Kenny MacAskill and his decision

[meatball]

What do y'all make of it?
Good/bad decision made by a person worthy of representing us or otherwise?

Try to avoid the innocent/guilty debate of it if you can please.

[Mr Momo]

should save us some money.......

[mckeann]

terrible decision. Now, i've only had a quick read of what i could find on google about this, so probably not all the facts, but if they still believe him to be guilty of it, then why should a life threatening illness mean you get let off. What if he recovers? will they take him back in??


Load of bollocks if you ask me

[tut]

Should have been hung first time around, along with the paedophiles, rapists, murderers and drug dealers.

Why you may ask? Because they could never do it again.

tut

[mac]

I would have left it until he had a few weeks left rather than a few months.

It's all about us as a nation being the bigger "person" I suppose - be interested in hearing a former Libian residents view on it


Mac

[campbell]

Life needs to be Life.

End of.

[cue raging debate]

All I picked up from his long winded speech was some side-swipe trying to blame the situation on the UK Govt for not having done something or other re: Prisoner Transfer Agreements? Spineless. If you are awarded your own Parliament and want to run your own Government (it is officially still just an Executive, mind), you need to stop blaming others for the decisions you are taking and start standing up for them yourself. It's the same when it comes to the Scottish "budget" as well, is it not. And don't get me started on their bleatings about FRB2.

I am not sure I am so proud to be Scottish these days, to be honest.

[tenkfeet]

He is a convicted mass murderer and should be left in jail to rot , or even better be hung . The law is a joke and now it appears killing people is ok and you will be let out should you be a be unlucky enough ( or should that be lucky ) to get ill . Yet again it shows victims of crime are not taken into account by the justice system. I think law should be based on an eye for an eye .

I suspect there is more to it than just compassion, innocence and not wanting to re-open the case maybe . Compassion should be reserved for victims and the families of the victims. In reality give it a month and it will be old news for the majority other than those directly effected.

Is one mans life worth the possibility of Scotland suffering as the Americans stop visiting and even stop trading ? Not a proud day for Scotland in my opinion .

[renmure]

If you are awarded your own Parliament and want to run your own Government (it is officially still just an Executive, mind), you need to stop blaming others for the decisions you are taking and start standing up for them yourself.

To be fair, It was the UK Government who established the Prisoner Transfer Scheme with Libya. The Scottish Government didn't have the authority (because the UK Government didn't give it the power) to opt out of this. Despite Scotland only holding ONE Libyan National prisoner, the UK Government did not agree to an exemption for (a) Scotland or (b) their one prisoner within this agreement. They then stepped back and washed their hands of the matter. If anything, it is probably an agrument for self determination rather than blaming others. IMHO

[meatball]

As I understand it -

MacAskill
-blamed the UK government,
-blamed the US government,
-cited medical evidence,
-cited prisoner transfer legislation (then rejected the claim/request to have him sent to Libya as a prisoner),
-stated that the elected Scottish parliament would not decide, he would,
-stated that no deals were done with Megrahi,
-was not legally compelled to release Megrahi,
-set Megrahi free (unconditionally) to die.

Megrahi
-was convicted (lawfully) of the murder (along with other persons, unknown) of 270 people,
-was appealing the conviction,
-the ongoing appeal against conviction meant that he could not be released on compassionate grounds....until the appeal was dropped.

Are we the bigger, more civilised nation now?
Are we proud to be Scottish?

I wish I could express my opinion on this public forum.

[Lazydonkey]

Is it still the wrong decision if he didn't do it in the first place?

[runs away]

[meatball]

As per post 1.......not looking for a discussion on his guilt.
He was found guilty by a Scottish court.

[Lazydonkey]

With respect how can you have a debate about it without considering the fact that the case against him was flimsy at best ?

Most of the posts so far have centred on the fact that it is wrong to release a man who was convicted, all i'm saying is that there was about to be an appeal and would everyone change their mind if he was found to be innocent. Due to his ill health he will not get an appeal and much of the evidence has now been suppressed.

[meatball]

Ok, I will clarify....he was convicted "beyond all reasonable doubt", as per the requirement in Scots law, which isn't flimsy, with due repesct.
The decision to release him by Kenny MacAskill wasn't based on his doubt over his guilt or innocence but on the assumption that he was a guilty man that was dying.

[Mr Momo]

As far as I understand, there has been an appeal already (I thought there were two ? )- failed obviously.

There's more to the original case than we will ever know, so the fact that he'll be released might reopen the conspiracy theories that the Americans were in on the whole situation in any case.....



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8211596.stm

[renmure]

quote="meatball: As I understand it -

MacAskill
-blamed the UK government.. for puting the Scottish Government in the position of having to consider a Prisoner Transfer. Seems fair comment.
-blamed the US government.. didn't notice that bit. In what context?
-cited medical evidence.. not unexpectedly given that any compasionate grounds were on terminal health issues and which has been published and is uncontested
-cited prisoner transfer legislation (then rejected the claim/request to have him sent to Libya as a prisoner) Would have been hypocritical to have argued against PTA then allowed it.
-stated that the elected Scottish parliament would not decide, he would,.. as Jutice Secretary it was his sole decesion. It wasn't a Political or Governmental decision.
-stated that no deals were done with Megrahi.. suppose you either believe that or not
-was not legally compelled to release Megrahi.. correct, and had previously turned down an appeal on compassionate grounds.
-set Megrahi free (unconditionally) to die.. yup, I think that is the game plan.

Megrahi
-was convicted (lawfully) of the murder (along with other persons, unknown) of 270 people.. yup
-was appealing the conviction.. yup
-the ongoing appeal against conviction meant that he could not be released on compassionate grounds....until the appeal was dropped.. yup

I wish I could express my opinion on this public forum. Go on ... and keep the Exige