RSS Feed MenuMost of the doctors who examined convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi concluded that he had some time to live, up to a year. Scottish Justice Minister Kenny McAskill opted instead to rely on a minority of doctors who estimated Megrahi’s life expectancy at less than three months. This mattered, because under Scottish law only those with less than 3 months to live qualify for compassionate release. Now Britain’s Daily Telegraph reports this:
Medical evidence that helped Megrahi, 57, to be released was paid for by the Libyan government, which encouraged three doctors to say he had only three months to live…
Megrahi is suffering from terminal prostate cancer. Two of the three doctors commissioned by the Libyans provided the required three-month estimates, while the third also indicated that the prisoner had a short time to live.
This contrasted with findings of doctors in June and July who had concluded that Megrahi had up to 10 months to live, which would have prevented his release.
Professor Karol Sikora, one of the examining doctors and the medical director of CancerPartnersUK in London, told The Sunday Telegraph: “The figure of three months was suggested as being helpful [by the Libyans].
“To start with I said it was impossible to do that [give a three-month life expectancy estimate] but, when I looked at it, it looked as though it could be done – you could actually say that.” He said that he and a second doctor, a Libyan, had legitimately then estimated Megrahi’s life expectancy as “about three months”. A third doctor would say only that he had a short time to live.
This weekend it was reported that Megrahi was moved out of an emergency care unit in Tripoli.
Far from an individual act of perhaps misguided compassion by one Scottish minister, the case increasingly looks like a deceitful connivance between the British, the Scots and the Libyans to cut short the imprisonment of a convicted mass murderer for commercial reasons.
The only consolation is that the British press has pressed for the truth and exposed their government’s true role. Meanwhile on this side of the Atlantic, an uncurious American press has accepted the Obama administration’s account at face value. Possibly that story is true. But given the level of lying in London and Edinburgh, it would be unrealistic to put much faith in Washington. What we need now are congressional hearings to discover:
- When did the Obama administration first hear of London’s desire to see Megrahi released – not formally learn, but actually learn.
- How did the administration respond? Did it protest? How forcefully?
- Did the Obama administration have any role in the Libya-U.K. negotiations? Specifically – did the Obama administration agree to downplay its complaints (i.e. Obama’s ultra-mild description of the release as a “mistake”) in exchange for commercial considerations for U.S. firms or interests?
- What consequences going forward will Britain’s attitude have for U.S.-U.K. relations and especially for U.S.-U.K. criminal justice cooperation?
There are many other questions to ask too as we seek to discover how the man who was convicted for killing 180 Americans was allowed to escape the full sentence for his crimes.
oldgal // Sep 6, 2009 at 9:48 am
On my list of priorities this one ranks down with chasing fireflies. Disagree with the actions and move-on. Don’t waste resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
midcon // Sep 6, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Look David, prostate cancer is slow growing and as you should know (because you are a guy) predictions on the life expectancy for prostate (and indeed any terminal illness) is a guessing game. oldgal is right. It’s done. There really are bigger fish to fry and “Remeber the Lockerbie” is not going to win elections.
txanne // Sep 6, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Maybe Glenn Beck will jump on this bandwagon. Sigh…its not like we dont have enough issues to divide us. Let’s create more contreversy over something that was done by other governments and blame it on Obama.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 4:00 pm
This is clearly a sign of 2 things…
Sidestepping the rule of law for money.
Capitulation to the new and soon to be majority Muslim immigrant population at home as well as appeasement of Islam afar. If we be nice to them, then they will treat us well in the future.
Enjoy the comming dhimmitude!
sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:02 pm
txanne:
There is one mistake the U.S. did make.
Even though most of those killed were Americans, the U.S. government agreed to allow this terrorist to be tried in Scotland on the condition that justice would be done.
Let’s not do that again.
The Left has always been hot to trot about trying the plotters of 9-11 (Osama and his friends) by an international court. I think that this sad outcome of the Lockerbie case should prove that from now on, America should administer its own justice to those who killed Americans.
Let Human Rights Watch and Greenpeace and the German pacifists and the rest of the international peanut gallery howl. They’re not the aggrieved party of these terrorist attacks.
We are.
midcon // Sep 7, 2009 at 9:06 am
escapevelocity. The U.S. Census Bureau (Table 74 – Religious Population: 2007) says that the percentage of Muslims in the U.S. is 0.6%. To put it another way – 99.4% of the U.S. population is not Muslim. I would be very interested in understanding how that translates to a “soon to be majority Muslim immigrant population at home” unless you meant that the majority of immigrants (overwhelmingly Hispanic) are Muslims? Or that the Hispanics are converting from Christianity to Islam or or or, whatever can you possibly mean?
wrs10 // Sep 7, 2009 at 7:26 pm
The 57 year old guy looked like 75 to me. I would not count on him lasting for a year.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 2:42 am
midcon, you seem to be woefully ill informed about what is going on in Europe, or you wouldnt have made such a mistake in understanding.
A great blessing of the US currently, is that the Spaniards thoroughly converted the South and Central American peoples to Catholicism, and that we have a Latino Catholic immigration problem, and not a South Asian and North African Muslim immigration problem.
Arab Americans are overwhelmingly Christians (and non Muslims), lets keep it that way. Why on Earth the Minnesotans living in their near monocultural paradise up there imported 50,000 Somali Muslims is beyond me. But I hope they enjoy their newly minted multiculturalist city. It reminds me of the naivite with which the Norweigans and Swedes imported Muslims…..after enjoying their isolation from even European Wars, and completely disconnected from real foreign cultures, their naivete led them to some foolish beliefs based on inexperience and years of safety and security and prosperity, in fact their homogenaic populations (lets face it a few Lapps just arent that conflict inducing)…..made their socialism lite work very well, but the newcomers are going to ruin that quickly.
The folly of man.
furrydoc // Sep 9, 2009 at 8:18 am
Sometimes prostatic carcinoma can be quite aggressive, particularly Stage D metastatic disease in men who are much younger than the octogenarians whose prostatic carcinoma tends to be indolent. I will accept the integrity of the treating physicians in their prognosis, the understandable desire of the Scottish prison system to make either expensive treatment of end-stage disease or hospice care somebody else’s problem and the prevailing local standards of compassionate release from prison irrespective of the heinous nature of the crime.
It is the hero’s welcome he received on his release and the British officials milling around this reception with their figurative flies down that captures the interest of world observers.
rich the furrydoc