Lockerbie bomber could live another 5-10 years

By Phil Boehmke

On August 20, 2009 Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland and allowed to return to Libya where he was expected to die within three months. According to the UK Telegraph, one of the physicians who examined Megrahi last summer has recently said that the infamous Lockerbie Bomber could live for another 10 or even 20 years.

Professor Karol Sikora who serves as the dean of medicine at Buckingham University may have had a much larger role in Megrahi's release than was previously thought.

The Scottish government insists Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister who took the final decision to release Megrahi, based his ruling on a medical report by Dr. Andrew Fraser, director of health and care at the Scottish Prison Service (SPS).

However.

A report in the Sunday Times said Libyan authorities, keen to secure Megrahi's release, asked several experts to put a three-month estimate on the bomber's life but Professor Sikora was the only one to agree.

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In a revealing statement Professor Sikora said.

"It was clear that three months was what they were aiming for. Three months was the critical point. On the balance of probabilities, I felt I could sort of justify [that]"

Both the Libyan and British governments appear to have been looking for a way to justify the return of Megrahi to his home and sought to use compassionate grounds as the means to accomplish their objective. The requirement for such an early release on medical grounds is that the prisoner must be terminally ill and expected to die within three months.

Jack Straw, then Justice Secretary at Westminster , admitted last year that trade and oil agreements were an essential part of the British government's decision to include Megrahi in a previously planned prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

He wrote to his Scottish counterpart to say it was "in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom" to make Megrahi eligible to return to Libya.

Last February in American Thinker I wrote about how Kenny MacAskill had discussed the release of the Lockerbie Bomber with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder prior to making his final decision. The official reaction of the Obama administration was merely to express their displeasure that Megrahi was given early release.

Several members of the U.S. Senate including John Kerry, Richard Lugar and Frank Lautenberg called for a senate hearing into the matter, but nearly a year later no hearing has been convened. The friends and families of the 270 persons (189 of whom were Americans) who were murdered in the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland have been victimized once again, but this time the perpetrators are the very people who should have seen to it that justice was done on their behalf.

paboehmke@yahoo.com