Is it compassionate to release a terminally ill terrorist who has been convicted of killing hundreds of civilians by blowing their airplane out of the sky? That’s the position taken by the Scottish government when it decided to release Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi so that he could return to cheering crowds in Libya.
FBI Director Robert Mueller contends that the release has made a mockery of the rule of law. This is not to suggest that Scottish criminal law is inadequate. Instead, Scottish Justice Minister Kenny McAskill simply failed to understand what constitutes compassion in his exercise of ministerial discretion. He has shown himself to be in this instance morally incompetent, allowing his rush to gush forth compassion to cloud his judgment as a lawyer and his responsibility as a civil official. He made a "mockery of the rule of law" by not giving the law and Mr. al-Megrahi’s Scottish and American victims and families their due consideration.
The quality of compassion is more than strained when it exceeds the bounds of what justice demands for those wronged. This is not a matter of telling victims’ families to "just getting over it", or rationalizing to them and the rest of the world that “well, he’s going to die soon anyway, so wouldn’t this be a nice gesture”. Nice has nothing to do with Mr. al-Megrahi’s behavior toward his victims. Justice Minister McAskill has callously ignored the facts that the relatives of the Lockerbie victims did not have any opportunity to console their loved ones as they went to their death, they had no chance to hold their hands or be with them in the final horrible moments before their deaths. Mr. McAskill has also ignored the facts of the victims’ own suffering in the face of that final terror of explosion, unexpected descent, and impact, that was engulfing them in mid-air or on the ground and the horrific manners in which they spent their last moments of life.
Why should their killer be allowed to have his family comfort him as he succumbs to death, a nicety that he so callously denied to hundreds of others without any regret or remorse? Why should he be allowed to enjoy any freedom in the face of the sudden and unfeeling denial of freedom and life suffered by his victims? His fêted return merely adds further insult.
An appropriate display of compassion by the Scottish government could have been to allow a final prison visit by the terrorist's family where they could say goodbye to him. Thereafter they then should be swiftly and securely returned to Libya with Mr. al-Megrahi left to die alone in prison, just as Mr. al-Megrahi forced his victims to die alone, far from their families and loved ones, under terrifying circumstances. Certainly, there were several possible ways to exhibit a modicum of compassion to the dying prisoner well short of his release as it were, scot-free.
By his actions, Justice Minister McAskill has indeed mocked the rule of law. His doing so raises further questions about his fitness to be entrusted with public office. Mr. McAskill’s lack of balanced moral judgment and his clear failing to temper his quest for compassion for Mr. al- Megrahi with both compassion for Mr. al-Megrahi’s innocent victims and their families and respect for the rule of law which determined Mr. al-Megrahi’s guilt raise questions concerning his ability to properly exercise any discretionary powers attributable to his office. One would like to think that Mr. McAskill as a Scots lawyer would have had a more informed recourse to the writings of Lord Stair concerning “obediential obligations” that might have guided him to a more balanced decision, especially concerning such a matter arising out of delict – a category which undoubtedly includes the injury caused by a deliberate terrorist act – but Mr. McAskill obviously failed to be true to the Scots legal tradition. Lest anyone think that our concern is solely for the American passengers, we also point out that Mr. McAskill’s actions have also mocked the memory of those Scots who innocently lost their lives on the ground as the 747 crashed upon them and their survivors. We can only hope that the British government will take adequate steps to prevent other terrorists in their custody from getting away scot-free.