THE SCOTTISH government is facing an embarrassing vote of censure after the crisis over its decision to free the Lockerbie bomber deepened yesterday.
Furious opposition leaders have forced Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, to hold a parliamentary vote next week – which his government is expected to lose heavily – over the decision to send Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi home to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli.
The first minister agreed to a fresh debate on the Lockerbie affair after members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) were recalled to the parliament yesterday for an emergency session to hear the Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, explain his decision to release Megrahi.
The Scottish Labour leader, Iain Gray, led the attacks by accusing Mr MacAskill of a “deeply flawed” decision that had “damaged Scotland’s reputation”. The minister had been “mishandling the whole affair”, he added.
Mr MacAskill’s discomfort grew after Mr Gray later claimed the minister had misled parliament by claiming he was required to meet Megrahi in person earlier this month under a prisoner-transfer treaty signed by the UK and Libyan governments.
Jack Straw, the UK justice secretary, confirmed yesterday that this was not true, he said. Mr MacAskill was only required to take written representations from Megrahi.
Annabel Goldie, Scottish Tory leader, said keeping Megrahi in a secure house or hospice in Scotland would have served justice better “than by a . . . terrorist being feted as a hero in Libya to a backdrop of waving saltires”.
Freeing Megrahi would now be the “defining image” of the Scottish National party’s four years in government, said Tavish Scott, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader.
“What the first minister and his government have done is to split Scotland, split our country within itself and split our nation from many international friends,” he said.
The Megrahi decision has seen Mr Salmond’s administration enduring the most intense criticisms and attacks since it came to power, after Robert Mueller, the FBI director, described it as “making a mockery of the rule of law”.
US president Barack Obama also joined US relatives of the 270 people killed in the bombing by criticising the decision.
But Mr MacAskill’s “brave” decision had earlier been supported by prominent religious figures. “The showing of mercy in any situation is not a sign of weakness,” said Archbishop Mario Conti, Roman Catholic archbishop of Glasgow.
In an open letter sent to all MSPs before the debate yesterday, the Rev Ian Galloway, from the protestant Church of Scotland, said compassionate release was a Christian and moral act.
“It was about what it is to believe in justice, what it is to believe in mercy, what it is to be truly human,” he said.
Sources at Holyrood said that the US government had appeared to concede earlier this month that giving Megrahi compassionate release was a possibility, and the better of the two options facing the Scottish government.
It also emerged Mr MacAskill had formally asked the US embassy in London for permission to release a letter written earlier this month, which said the US government believed giving Megrahi compassionate release was “far preferable” to transferring him to serve the rest of his sentence in a Libyan jail. – (Guardian service)
Opinion: page 14