The decision to release the Lockerbie bomber will have lasting consequences

 

HOW a politician as obscure as Kenny MacAskill came to provoke the ire of Britain’s most important ally, leave the prime minister in a confounding fix and trigger internationalspeculation about shady diplomatic and commercial deals may be the most remarkable story of the first decade of devolved Scottish power. On August 20th Scotland’s justice secretary freed Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history, the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people (189 of them Americans) were killed. Mr Megrahi is dying of cancer and Scottish law permits release on compassionate grounds. To Mr MacAskill’s surprise, it seems, all hell broke loose.

Britain’s ever-less-special relationship with America has taken an undeniable knock: President Barack Obama as well as the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, denounced the release. Even if official American outrage may smack of domestic political posturing, that of the victims’ relatives does not.

At home, Gordon Brown has seen his Labour Party’s standing in the polls slip further, despite his colleagues’ insistence that the decision was made exclusively by Scotland’s nationalist administration. Days of prime ministerial silence on the matter (though England’s victory against Australia in cricket was worthy of comment) fed an impression that Mr Brown is a man who disappears at moments of crisis.

When he eventually spoke up, on August 25th, he declared himself “repulsed” by the celebrations of Mr Megrahi’s return in Tripoli (complete with grateful waving of Scottish flags) but refused to say whether he thought the terrorist’s release was justified. The quasi-judicialdecision, said Mr Brown, was entirely Mr MacAskill’s to make. A cautious venture into criticism the next day by Jack Straw, Britain’s justice secretary, did little to remedy the impression that Mr Brown and his team are desperate to stay out of it.

And with reason, perhaps, for suspicions are swirling that Mr Megrahi’s release was part of a dark bargain with Muammar Qaddafi, Libya’s leader. It was ongoing payment for Libya’s conversion from terror-sponsoring rogue state to ally in the war against terrorism, say some. A prisoner-transfer agreement between the two countries ratified earlier this year, which might have provided Mr Megrahi an alternative route home, suggests that London had been willing for some time to oblige the Libyans in the matter.

The release was actually part of a trade deal, claim others, noting that Lord Mandelson, the powerful business secretary, had twice this year met Mr Qaddafi’s son, who told Mr Megrahi on his journey home that “in all the trade, oil and gas deals which I have supervised, you were there on the table.” Lord Mandelson calls the implication that a terrorist was released for commercial reasons “offensive”, but it emerged this week that three British ministers have visited Libya in the past 15 months (as has Prince Andrew, Britain’s special representative for trade and investment). Calls for an inquiry into the release, in particular into whether business considerations played a role, are multiplying.

Courting Qaddafi

Britain’s business interests in Libya are indeed substantial. British imports alone topped £1 billion ($1.9 billion) in 2008, and both imports and exports rose steeply in the first five months of 2009. It is not just the profits from helping to expand Libyan daily oil production from 1.7m barrels to 3m barrels by 2013 that British firms hope to reap, though Libyan oil is easily accessible and underexplored.

City financial firms, happy to channel Libya’s foreign investments now, want to develop financial services in the North African country too. Retailers such as Marks & Spencer, one of the 150 British firms present in Libya, hope to expand there, and defence and construction contracts beckon. But Britain and its companies are not alone in spotting opportunity in Libya: French, Italian and indeed American firms are all courting Mr Qaddafi. Gene Cretz, America’s first ambassador to Libya in 36 years, waxed enthusiastic earlier this year about expanding tourism and military ventures. (Scottish companies—especially oil and gas firms in and around Aberdeen, the political heartland of Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister—have commercial ties to Libya too.)

At an emergency session of the Scottish Parliament on August 24th, Mr MacAskill explained that under Scottish law compassion should be applied “no matter the severity of the provocation or the atrocity perpetrated”. He has supporters, including the Catholic and Protestant churches of Scotland and two-thirds of Scottish lawyers, according to one poll. Many Scots resent American criticism of his decision.

But his opponents (who also have his boss, the cunning and popular Mr Salmond, in their sights), are not letting up. Scotland’s Parliament will return to the matter on September 2nd. Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory leader, expects it to pass a motion declaring “for the world to hear” that Mr MacAskill’s decision “was not taken in the name of the Scottish people”. A YouGov poll published on August 27th found that over half of the Scots surveyed did not approve of Mr Megrahi’s release, and almost a third think that Mr MacAskill should resign.

 

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War crimes and international justice

Always get your man

Oct 22nd 2009
From The Economist print edition