Posted on 08/23/2009 8:27:02 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Alex Salmond hits back after FBI chief attacks Lockerbie bomber release
Charlene Sweeney
The Scottish First Minister was today forced to defend the decision to set free the Lockerbie bomber as outrage over his release continued to mount.
Alex Salmond maintained that the move was made in accordance with the Scottish judicial system and was taken for the “right reasons”, after Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, claimed that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s release “made a mockery” of the law and rewarded terrorism.
Mr Salmond’s predecessor at Holyrood, Scottish Labour’s Jack McConnell, described the decision as a “grave error of judgment”, and accused the SNP government of damaging Scotland’s reputation around the world.
Al-Megrahi, who is suffering from cancer, was released on compassionate grounds last Thursday after serving eight years of a life sentence for his part in the atrocity, which claimed the lives of 270 people in 1988.
Mr Salmond said in a Radio 4 interview that the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, had acted in accordance with Scots law. He also said Mr Mueller was wrong to claim that all families disagreed with their decision.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Bye-bye Single Malts. Hello, Jack Daniels.
I guess this is what is bothering me also when you think about closing Gitmo. There are countries that are saying they want to take some. Also, imprisoning them in Michigan. What does it take to start hundreds of cells within prision and then be let out?
Blood for Oil
http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=7365&posts=3#M21086
BBC
This is the content of a letter from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, sent to Scottish Minister Kenny MacAskill regarding the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Dear Mr. Secretary:
Over the years I have been a prosecutor, and recently as the Director of the FBI, I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors, since only the prosecutor handling the case has all the facts and the law before him in reaching the appropriate decision.
Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law, having been the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991.
And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of “compassion.”
Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law.
Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man’s exercise of “compassion.”
Your action rewards a terrorist even though he never admitted to his role in this act of mass murder and even though neither he nor the government of Libya ever disclosed the names and roles of others who were responsible.
Your action makes a mockery of the emotions, passions and pathos of all those affected by the Lockerbie tragedy: the medical personnel who first faced the horror of 270 bodies strewn in the fields around Lockerbie, and in the town of Lockerbie itself; the hundreds of volunteers who walked the fields of Lockerbie to retrieve any piece of debris related to the breakup of the plane; the hundreds of FBI agents and Scottish police who undertook an unprecedented global investigation to identify those responsible; the prosecutors who worked for years - in some cases a full career - to see justice done.
But most importantly, your action makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988.
You could not have spent much time with the families, certainly not as much time as others involved in the investigation and prosecution.
You could not have visited the small wooden warehouse where the personal items of those who perished were gathered for identification - the single sneaker belonging to a teenager; the Syracuse sweatshirt never again to be worn by a college student returning home for the holidays; the toys in a suitcase of a businessman looking forward to spending Christmas with his wife and children.
You apparently made this decision without regard to the views of your partners in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy.
Although the FBI and Scottish police, and prosecutors in both countries, worked exceptionally closely to hold those responsible accountable, you never once sought our opinion, preferring to keep your own counsel and hiding behind opaque references to “the need for compassion.”
You have given the family members of those who died continued grief and frustration. You have given those who sought to assure that the persons responsible would be held accountable the back of your hand.
You have given Megrahi a “jubilant welcome” in Tripoli, according to the reporting. Where, I ask, is the justice?
Sincerely yours,
Robert S. Mueller, III
Director
He has cancer in a country with nationalized health care. Cheaper to release him.
He said there had been wide consultation with American families and politicians, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Kenny MacAskill, had acted in accordance with Scots law.”
So Arlen Specter approves ?
It would have been cheaper to kill him...
Show him the same humanitarian concern and resolve he showed his victims.
Here cost benefit definitely has a winner. Today he is a remorseless hero. Today others are asking for advise and technological know how. Today he is a general - a five star general as well as hero.
Salmond has to be put on the “No Entry” list.
Did USSoS Clinton speak with any of the affected families? Did she get WH approval to sign off on the release? Have any of those families spoken out in favor of the release?
Have the Brit media conducted interviews of the UK families that were affected, praising the decision, as the First Minister would have us believe?
We all know the 9/11 families have different positions on matters relating to that atrocity, i.e., “The Jersey Girls,”(who got the most MSM attention) while the vast majority want justice as we know it.
Sorry, I am not buying ‘compassion’ for the evil perpetrator who should have been fried two decades ago.
Along with a general boycott of Scottish whiskey..all the airlines of the world should stop serving Scottish whiskey on the their flights and stop stocking it in their duty free selections. That would crimp their style a bit.
Kill 270 people, serve eight years. Got it.
Eleven days in jail per premeditated murder.
I wish I drank Scotch so I could now switch to Jack Daniels.
Qaddafi gets the last laugh. Ronnie should have killed him.
My husband is in Scotland this week on business. He says most of the Scots are very upset about this. They don’t think he should have been released either.
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