Obama seeks house arrest for Megrahi - US condemns Scotland’s decision to release Lockerbie bomber

Obama seeks house arrest for Megrahi - US condemns Scotland’s decision to release Lockerbie bomber
By Andrew Bolger in Edinburgh, Daniel Dombey in Washington and Heba Saleh in Cairo
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: August 20 2009 15:54 | Last updated: August 20 2009 23:53
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb5dac38-8d94-11de-93df-00144feabdc0.html


Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, left using stick, is accompanied by Seif al-Islam el-Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi, on his arrival at an airport in Tripoli to be greeted by crowds waving Libyan and Scottish flags

President Barack Obama on Thursday strongly criticised Scotland’s decision to free the Lockerbie bomber, and called on Libya to keep him under house arrest.

The call came as hundreds of young Libyans gathered at the airport in Tripoli to welcome Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, and cheered and waved national flags – and Scottish saltires – as his car sped out of the airport, even though victims’ relatives said they had understood there would be no hero’s welcome.

Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s justice secretary, said Mr Megrahi, who has a life expectancy of less than three months, was being released on compassionate grounds.

“We have been in contact with the Scottish government, indicating that we objected to this,” Mr Obama told a US radio programme. “And we thought it was a mistake. We’re now in contact with the Libyan government, and want to make sure that ... he’s not welcomed back in some way, but instead should be under house arrest.”

In a striking series of protests against a decision by an ally, Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, called the bombing a “heinous crime”, while Eric Holder, attorney-general, said the interests of justice had “not been served” by the decision.

Mr Megrahi was serving a 27-year sentence for the murder of 270 people, most of them American, when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in 1988 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

Mr MacAskill said he stood by the conviction of Mr Megrahi, who had shown no compassion to his victims or their families. But he said that alone was not reason to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days.

David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, attacked the decision by the Scottish government as “completely nonsensical”. “This man was convicted of murdering 270 people. He showed no compassion to them. They weren’t allowed to go home and die with their relatives in their own bed. And I think this is a very bad decision,” he said.

His remarks are the first intervention by a senior politician in Westminster. Gordon Brown, prime minister, has so far declined to comment, saying it is a matter for Edinburgh.

20 years of tragedy

FT slideshow: The release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi has reawakened memories of the bombing

Mr Megrahi, 57, was the only person convicted for the bombing. He lost an appeal against his conviction in 2002, but a Scottish review of his case ruled in 2007 that there may have been a miscarriage of justice. He abandoned a second appeal this week.

Suse Lowenstein, of Montauk, New York, whose son, Alexander, was killed at the age of 21, said: “It is so devastating and it is difficult for me to accept that the one man we had responsible for the murders of our son and the 270 victims in total is now going home to die in the arms of his family. It is just beyond comprehension.”

Mr MacAskill said he accepted that wider questions remained to be answered about the Lockerbie bombing, but these were beyond the jurisdiction of Scots law and the restricted remit of the Scottish government, as a devolved body.

Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya and now the deputy chairman of the Libyan British Business Council, said the release of Mr Megrahi “removes a small irritant” in relations between London and Tripoli.