Kamakazie Sith wrote:Since we don't have access to that information we can't really debate whether this trial was actually a "travesty of justice", and it's not my intention to do so. I should have posted a disclaimer. My post is directed against the idea of compassionate release, and this persons conviction is being used as the example since that's where the debate began.
There is a substantial amount of documentation available, and while I doubt anyone here has the time to read it all, we
do have access to Dr Köchler's
rather damning statements on the trial. As a UN observer, we can hopefully accept his neutrality.
International Progress Organisation Report on the Lockerbie Trial and Appeal – this is one of a number of statements he’s made, of course, and many other items of documentation are available on that website, but this one specifically highlights the intimidating long roll of serious problems with the trial and appeal. Some are less critical (for example, "
The circumstances of detention of the two accused at Her Majesty's Prison Zeist were in conformity with national legal requirements and international legal and human rights standards.")
It's extremely interesting reading (and impressively brief). In it, he pretty much tears the entire case to shreds.
The reason I keep bringing up Dr Köchler's comments on the trial is as follows: The function of UN/International Observers in matters like this is in order to verify and attest to the neutrality of proceedings, and that justice is being served by the trial. In a case where these observers claim that the trial was conducted improperly, particularly in as damning a way as this,
the witness to the proper conduct of the trial has essentially declared that it was improperly run. In this respect, I think the convicted Al-Megrahi is entitled to
more than an appeal: an appeal has a presumption of guilt. He deserves a
re-trial where he would be innocent until proven guilty, because the original trail was conducted in a grossly improper and unfair manner.
While Dr Köchler is only human, and of course, fallible, his appointment as a UN/IPO observer gave him the task of reporting on the trial; and his report and later statements are unequivocally negative in almost all respects about the way the trial was run. Instead, his comments in his capacity reporting for the United Nations have essentially been ignored.
Returning to your argument, I'd accept that in general, compassionate release is an unjust lenience – indeed, as Mike (IIRC) has pointed out here on occasion,
Mercy (or in this case, compassion) and Justice are not only not the same thing, they are antithetical: Mercy is inherently unjust, as it requires an undeserved leniency from pity or similar reasons. When one talks about
compassion in such matters, one is abandoning the path of Justice, and such things should require exceptional reasons.
I would however, take issue with your emphasis on the victims’ feelings – I know that if any of my immediate relatives had died I would be satisfied with little less than the electric chair (I am, I must admit, rather vindictive) for those I thought responsible: in pursuit of closure for victims, one is essentially playing to a crowd. While it is a legitimate argument against lenient sentences for criminals, I wouldn’t rate it as a particularly important part of the sentancing process - otherwise, do those criminals whose victims are dead and have no one to mourn for them, get let off? That is of course, an exxaggerated example, but in caving to the pressure of the wronged, one sacrifices 'equal treatment under the law.'
In the
specific case of Al-Megrahi, though, given the sheer corruption of his trial (as an example, his lawyers were appointed by the Lybian government, without any consultation of himself, or another, refusal of said lawyers to employ certain evidence in his defence) makes me consider it invalid – therefore, Justice is not served by his conviction and imprisonment, and I find myself having no problem with his being freed – obviously, this is going to distress people who believed he did it, but as the trial was conducted in a corrupt manner, I would say his actual conviction is invalid.
Of course, it’s a dubious and back-door release (and rather too late to be of any use to the man) but I’d not say it’s actually immoral in this instance.
As a general policy, I’m not impressed with 'compassionate release' but in this case, I'd say given the wrongful imprisonment already endured, it's not morally wrong.
