cpwigan wrote:Trotski many people have been found guilty and then found to not be guilty in high profile cases especially linked to terrorism.
That is true but given we don't have the death penalty such people have been freed but only after they were proved innocent, not before. Sometimes they were let out on bail but technically that was on license pending the proceedings being completed to quash the convictions.
Even if he is guilty then releasing a man to die is surely what a civilised society should be about. In particular countries that are underpinned by religion.
We are a secular society and so the law functions separately from the religious beliefs of the population.
He should have remained in prison pending appeal and if there was compassion to be shown it should have been transferring him to a prison in Libya not simply releasing him on condition he dropped his appeal.
By doing that the Scottish minister has left the cloud of guilt over his head and while he is guilty that removes any need to seek the real perpetrators (if we assume he is actually innocent).
We know the death penalty does not work. America proves that. We know that treating terrorists as persona non grata never worked with the IRA and that dia,logue has proven more productive. Obama was elected on the basis he was going to be different than the norm America but his actions since then have been the same old same old.
I have not read much of the American opinion on this but I would imagine it is pretty much "He's guilty, let him rot inside" whereas my view is he should have remained inside but in Libya with his appeal and the appeal process being expedited.
What did anybody have to gain from letting this man die in prison?
If he had died in prison be that in the UK or Libya that would be unfortunate but what was to be gained was the integrity of the justice system would have been maintained. Had he gone to Libya to prison there, I am sure the conditions of it would have been very accommodating for him and his family and while this may seem little different from being actually released technically it is very different from a legal point of view.
As you said yourself he won't have been kept in a cell for months anyway and will have been receiving the best care possible.
Well if so and this were being done with him transferred to Libya instead it would to all intents and purposes mean he was being treated as a free man but most importantly technically he would not have been. The appeal could continue.
Also were he to die before it completed the appeal could continue posthumously and so the truth could come out and now it won't - well not in court it won't and that is what matters.
One of the relatives of one of the Scottish victims is a vicar, believes him innocent after having sat through all the trial in The Hague but he still wanted the appeal process completed and I think that was the right attitude. The appeals process could only continue if he were still a prisoner but the form of his "incarseration" in Libya could have been very different.
I see the Scottish parliament has been recalled to debate the aftermath of his release. Too late and they specifically did not recall it before the decision was made which was IMO a mistake.
Whether the Scottish minister involved felt this was an opportunity to "govern" and flex his governmental authority is something that also crossed my mind, i.e. there was political motivation for releasing him. If foreign governments gang up on little old Scotland I am sure it won't do the Scottish Nationalists cause any harm as they are shown to be standing up to the USA etc.
Dave
