Well, sort of. If one only paid attention to what Hillary Clinton or (some of) the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing said, you might gain the false impression that his possible release (or transfer to a Libyan jail) was some kind of admission that he is in fact innocent. It’s important to remember that this is not the case. If – or possibly when – Abdebaset Ali al-Megrahi is released, it will be on the compassionate grounds that he is a dying man whose cancer is inoperable and terminal. It is not an act of clemency* pardon or commutation.
Even so, one can see why such a decision would upset some people. Nonetheless, for all that this affair has not been handled especially brilliantly by the SNP ministry in Edinburgh, some of the accusations made against it are, well, over-the-top. Here’s Nick Cohen for instance:
The SNP is filled with small-toon politicians who are miles out of their depth.
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