Libya’s rebel government said Sunday it will not extradite the Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound jetliner which killed 270 people when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is dying of prostate cancer at his home in Libya, near comatose and has stopped eating. He was released from a Scotland prison on compassionate grounds in 2009 after serving 8 years of a life sentence.
Attempting to justify the NATO intervention as having something – anything – to do with US national security, some in Congress and some GOP presidential candidates pushed last week for the rebels’ Transitional National Council to re-arrest and extradite al-Megrahi. Many of the most prominent pro-war advocates invoked the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 190 Americans, as a way to demonize Gadhafi and build support for the intervention.
But it was clear that those directing US foreign policy cared little about Lockerbie or Megrahi. Just prior to Megrahi’s release, senior US Congressmen visited the Libyan government to strengthen ties with the Gadhafi government, including cooperating on a number of security deals, and were under explicit request from President Obama not to discuss the Lockerbie issue.
Megrahi is expected to die very soon, and although the US still officially objects to his release, the Libyan rebels won’t allow his extradition. “We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West,” NTC Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said.
Western governments have remained silent on the issue and they must be hoping he dies along with Gaddafi as soon as possible. Western governments are the last who would want a new trial.
Purely a vendetta, how stupid and ignorant. The man was tried and released- done. The TNC has other priorities: like averting a humanitarian disaster and disease, and restoring basic facilities to millions of people, and securing a country, and providing cash to citizens so they can buy food, etc, etc, etc.
and wrongly convicted.
It strongly deserves to be recalled that a large body of informed opinion holds that al Magrahi was innocent and was in fact deliberately framed. See for example the following from the Harvard Law Review:
http://www.hlrecord.org/opinion/who-was-really-be…
Extradition has long been used as a tool to ensure that the established authoritarians of all countries do not face opposition anywhere.
Why a government would sacrifice one of it’s citizens to, say, the US is beyond explanation.
"'We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West,' NTC Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said."
… however, maybe they will look the other way when the Navy Seals swoop in for a commando raid to assassinate him on his deathbed.
Bolder spirits than the Libyan reels have flinched at the approach of the most heavily armed terrorists in the world. But, of course, in order to hand a Lockerbie bomber to the American revenge-seekrs (compare the civilized reaction of equally bereaved Dr Jim Swire)., the Libyans would first have to find him. But why is it their responsbility? Why not ask the Popular Front for the LIberation of Palestine? NO sane person regards the kangaroo trial at Camp Zeist as anything other than a farce…..