Firstly a thank you to those who have commented on my post in relation to my twitter exchange with Louise Bagshawe either at the post or on posts elsewhere (special thanks to ). The comments are much appreciated. I had feared I was over-reacting, and might be missing something. To know that other share my view of Louise Bagshawe is comforting.
It’s probably useful for those readers that do not ordinarily frequent the blawgs to pick up some of the more interesting posts relating to Mr Megrahi’s release from the past week. The starting point is usually Professor Robert Black QC’s blog which gathers together news items relating to Lockerbie and is a resource going back some time. Robert Black QC was the Professor who came up with the model that formed the basis of the trial. He has long believed Megrahi innocent. His blog is at http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/ and has been particularly active in recent weeks.
Jonathan Mitchell, QC, is a senior Scottish advocate who has analysed the legal justification for release and the letter from the FBI (the latter is a masterly demolition of the letter from the head of the FBI which criticised Mr MacAskill’s decision to release, pointing out a series of misunderstandings and one or two alarming undercurrents).
It should be noted that Mr Mitchell’s views are not shared by all of his colleagues at the Scottish bar. Some comments from Scottish advocates can be found at an interesting post (with comments) from Charon QC at which is heavy on legal analysis anduseful in trying to work out what was going on (something the media has not been great at on the whole). The comments of advoc_8 are of particular interest in that thread (and I confess my own error in one of the comments there – the perils of writing quick blog comments with no editing facility - in that I am well aware that the Lockerbie trial was not in Scotland (albeit the strange legal status of Camp Zeist for the duration of the trial rendered it quasi-scottish following the treaty between the Uk and the Netherlands that allowed the trial to be held at camp Zeist)).
There have also been recent posts on Lockerbie by professor Hector MacQueen, one of Scotland’s leading legal academics, at the well-established Scots law News website.
One other interesting legal commentary comes from lallands peat worrier, a blog new to me, but very well written and informative with a distinctive take on a variety of issues. The post reviewing the statutory authority for the release is very interesting.
Given the speculation about politic machinations, commerce, conspiracies, and the rest (i see even The Economist is at it today) it is useful to go back to the material to ask what could, and should Mr MacAskill have done?
Each of the posts specifically referred to above is enlightening.
PS: is that how you do that google thing in the opening paragraph?
And I see on Ceefax that Gaddafi’s son has helpfully stepped in to say “oh yeah, Megrahi’s release was a deal for oil trade, wot dad and I arranged.”
What a clusterfuck