The Megrahi Forum: The Opposite Of Vengence

A comment published in the Scottish review about the Lockerbie bomber's release. By Sheila Hetherington, my Grandmother.

The atrocious murder of 270 innocent, happy, excited people heading home for Christmas appalled the world 21 years ago, and continues to appal us now. Families and friends of the victims will grieve until they themselves die. Generations to come will continue to mourn. The foul act will be remembered as long as memory lasts.
Justice demands that the truth should be uncovered. The present position is deeply unsatisfactory. There are countless theories and counter-theories, suspicions involving a number of foreign governments, talk of relevant papers being made permanently unavailable for inspection. But that inquiry, though urgent, is for the future.
Meantime a man who is thought to have helped to perpetrate this crime is dying. I cannot believe that his death in prison a few months from now could have brought solace to the bereaved, or relieved their anguish in any way, though their personal suffering can only be whole-heartedly respected and understood.
So what should have happened to Megrahi? In practical terms, to remove the prisoner to a hospice or hospital to die in this country would, as Mr MacAskill has pointed out, have brought distress and disturbance to other patients whose right it is to find peace and tranquility at their own time of death. A hospice surrounded by up to 40 policemen is unthinkable, callous and would have been rightly condemned.
Vengeance is not a national characteristic, I think, and, when sought, it often bounces back insidiously and viciously. Jim Swire and others still in profound grief have urged against it. And particularly, since in any case we have some doubts as to Megrahi's innocence or guilt, it must be avoided. Mercy is the opposite of vengeance. It is unconditional. It too bounces back unexpectedly, bringing its own blessings.
The return of Megrahi to Tripoli was not well done. He could have been slipped home without publicity, in a British plane. The scenes at Tripoli airport were abhorrent and disgraceful, and we must be prepared for more of these scenes to come.
I sometimes wonder if BBC News is always impartial in its reporting. Headlines such as 'Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, has been forced to defend the decision...' seem perhaps to be a trifle biased against Mr MacAskill.
Returning Megrahi to die at home was a courageous act of mercy. It was an entirely selfless, non-political judgment, and it is distressing to see that some party members, both within and outside Scotland, are seeking to turn it to political advantage. This opportunism is demeaning, and it is reassuring to see that some of our leading politicans – Lord Steel and Henry McLeish to mention only two – have not stooped to such manoevrings, but have praised Mr MacAskill's decision as courageous, and 'the right thing to do'.
I too believe that it was.