FORMER Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who freed the Lockerbie bomber, has lifted the lid on what was one of the most controversial decisions taken by the SNP Government during the party’s nine years in power.
MacAskill has admitted that his decision in August 2009 to release Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds was partly motivated by fears of violent reprisals against Scottish civilians if the man convicted of the bombings had died from cancer in a prison in Scotland.
In his book The Lockerbie Bombing: The Search for Justice, MacAskill says he believes that Megrahi’s protestations of innocence were “fanciful”, but writes that the former Libyan intelligence officer was “a cog in a very much larger wheel, acting under orders from those far more senior than him”.
He states that the then Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was involved in the signing-off the terror attack that saw a Pan-AM airline blow-up over Lockerbie in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.
“The suggestions of conspiracies by others or unknown are fanciful. The protestations of innocence by Megrahi are equally so, though his role was a very limited one.”
MacAskill decision to release Megrahi saw the Scottish Government face condemnation both at home and abroad, with US president Barack Obama saying that the decision was “a mistake” and some US victims’ families criticising the decision to let a convicted mass murder walk free.
However, MacAskill insisted he would “live with the consequences” when announcing that he was sending Megrahi home to die after the bomber had earlier dropped a legal appeal against his conviction in 2001, when he was sentenced to life.
MacAskill reveals that other ministers in the government refused to travel with him amid fears about threats to his life.
The book, which is published on 26 May, includes passages in which MacAskill tells how he and his team received death threats, following the decision to free Megrahi, who died from cancer in 2012.
A member of staff also received threats of rape and acid baths, Mac- Askill says as he writes about the fallout of the release that saw the Scottish Parliament recalled early for an urgent debate during the summer recess of 2009.
He also talks about how he wondered at one point if he should amend his will, such was the high level of concern he had about the possibility of reprisals.
MacAskill, who has now quit as an MSP, claimed the UK Labour Government of the day wanted Scottish ministers to take all the flak for the decision to release Megrahi.
“The British Government was trying to stitch us up. They wanted us to be the patsies. What the UK Labour Government wanted was Megrahi released with Scotland taking the blame”, MacAskill said.
However, in a startling revelation, MacAskill said the decision to release Megrahi was influenced by fears that Scots would be targeted by terrorists if the Libyan remained in a Scottish jail, in the same way that prison officers in Northern Ireland had been targeted by paramilitaries.
He writes: “There was hostility to the West and ordinary citizens were becoming targets.
“Most in North Africa or the wider Arab world neither knew of Scotland nor cared about it.
“I was aware of the deaths of prison officers that had occurred in Northern Ireland where some had died through terrorist attack. The last thing I wanted was to have Scotland become a place that was demonised and its citizens targeted.
“I would not allow Scottish oil workers or others, whatever they might be, to face retribution as a consequence of my decision.”
Meanwhile, the father of a woman who was killed in the Lockerbie bombing said MacAskill was wrong to believe Megrahi was responsible.
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora when Pan-Am flight 103 exploded, said: “What interests me about Kenny MacAskill’s book is whether or not he has had a proper chance to look at all the evidence because if he had, then he would know that Megrahi was not guilty.
“There are so many people that need answers to questions and if this book brings a lot of these things back into range then it’s a very good thing.”
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