Talking McRubbish

People who misbehave in Scotland had better watch out in future. If secular justice doesn’t get them, a “higher power” might just be waiting in the wings – well, in the clouds.

This is the fate that, according to a man in a position that ought to dictate that he not talk such rubbish, that awaits the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, whom the Scottish authorities have, to the amazement of half the world, let go.

They refused Libya a straight prisoner transfer, but released al Megrahi on compassionate grounds, because he has terminal cancer.

And why are people so exercised? Well, the 270 people who died of terminal death got no compassion, that’s why.

It was nothing to do with the British government, and the British Foreign Secretary has been heard on radio today bemoaning the hero’s welcome al Megrahi has received. The Americans aren’t too pleased about Scotland’s decision to release him, either.

But it’s the fatuous comment by the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, that’s just as annoying as Libya’s welcome for the man accused of mass murder on and beneath Pan Am flight 103 back in 1988.

“With Scotland about to be put under intense scrutiny by Christian Americans and Muslims around the world,” says a story in Scotland’s Herald, “the Justice Secretary said: ‘Those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive. Their pain runs deep and the wounds remain.

“ ‘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.’ ”

What a prat!

Does that sort of thinking influence such decisions? That al Megrahi’s imminent death has been “imposed” by some “higher power”? Does Kenny MacAskill believe that al Megrahi will also go on to be judged by this “higher power”? Which power will it be: the Allah version or the God version? Or even the Yahweh version?

Whatever you think of the decision to release him, and whether he deserved compassion when he was in a state whose custodial institutions, while maybe not ideal, are among the most humane in the world – and well able to look after someone with a terminal illness – the fact remains that it was a crime by human beings against human beings, on Earth, and all we should be considering is secular justice.

There’s no higher power, Mr MacAskill. Don’t talk tripe.