Lockerbie bomber freed

[hard2miss]

Alas if it wasn't for speculation I doubt there would have been a conviction. I guess we can only form our own oppinions baised on the facts as we see them and if that means we don't agree with the trial outcome then Im sorry but I personaly won't appologise or change oppinion.

 

so some of us will have to agree to dissagree

[Harleyman]

That's me, always trying to stop Sheffield expats having a voice on the Forum :hihi:

 

Your post should be accompanied with sad brass band music rising steadily in volume.

 

Yer a sad and bitter wee man and nay doots aboot that

[donkey]

You really like throwing out the insults don't you. You have no place in society with this kind of abuse. I bet you don't act like this in a pub. That would take courage.

 

Yeah, really throwing out the insults in that post, aren't I ???

[donkey]

Yer a sad and bitter wee man and nay doots aboot that

 

Is that your impression of how those people you think should be boycotted talk?

 

I would hope that the families of those who perished in the bombing will organize a tourist boycott of Scotland this year.

 

A few thousand less tourists in places like Edinburgh will mean a lot less "poonds" in their sporans.

[Kingmaker2]

It is called International Waters,there for anybody's use including the RN.

 

Hmm I think you will find Buck, that The Iranian Airbus was in Iranian airspace, and the USS Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters at the time the Irainian airbus was shot down.

 

"It took four years for the US administration to admit officially that the USS Vincennes was in Iranian waters when the skirmish took place with the Iranian gunboats."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/3/newsid_4678000/4678707.stm

[Harleyman]

Apparently the crew of the USS Vincennes mistakenly took the Airbus for an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter.

 

Other than the US which other countries were flying this type of fighter plane?

[Kingmaker2]

Apparently the crew of the USS Vincennes mistakenly took the Airbus for an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter.

 

Other than the US which other countries were flying this type of fighter plane?

 

Well there were many lies banded about at the time of the attack.

 

The crew said the plane was decending from 7,000 ft, toward them, in fact the official investigation found that the Iranian plane was ascending to 12,000 turning away from the Vincennes!

 

This is an interesting read (A transcript from a tv broadcast) from ABC's Ted Koppel about the incident.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html

[Kingmaker2]

Buck, just in case you still think the USS Vincennes was in international waters, this is what Admiral William J. Crowe Jr. (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral, U.S. Navy) said to ABC's Ted Koppel in an interview:

 

Ted Koppel (interviewing): But if I were to ask you today, was the Vincennes in international waters at the time that she shot down the Airbus—

 

Admiral Crowe : Yes, she was.

 

Ted Koppel: In international waters?

 

Admiral Crowe : No, no, no.

 

She was in Iran’s territorial waters.

 

Ted Koppel. Let me ask you again.

 

Where was the Vincennes at the time that she shot down the Airbus?

 

Admiral Crowe : She was in Iran territorial waters.

 

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html

[BromideBill]

The international reputation of Scotland has been damaged (that's obvious from the global response).

 

Gordon Brown has said nothing, some leader, he's probably too busy checking out the contestants on the new X Factor and wondering which one to phone up.

 

The guy was convicted of the crime, he should serve life, end of.

 

If Scotlands "due process" has been served as he says it has, then the due process needs changing.

 

It's just another event that makes me ashamed to say I'm British.

[Kingmaker2]

The international reputation of Scotland has been damaged (that's obvious from the global response).

The guy was convicted of the crime, he should serve life, end of.

 

 

Bromidebill, I think you have to be a little careful in assessing the "Global response", sure by the media reporting you would think every man and his dog was against the decision, but that's the media reporting for you.

Quite a few people actually support the decision, particuarly those that think Megahi was actually wrongly convicted.

Certainly some of the UK news forums and news comment I have visited from the BBC to the Independent and others, there is I would say a majority in favour of the decision perhaps by a 70 / 30% split.

 

As far as the original conviction goes, you have to remember Megrahi was not convicted by a traditional jury, but by just 3 judges, and an intial appeal by Megrahi was rejected.

 

Professor Robert Black is often referred to as the architect of holding the non-jury Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial at the neutral venue of Camp Zeist, Netherlands, and applying Scots Law to the Lockerbie case.

 

In an interview with The Scotsman on 1 November 2005 Professor Black said Megrahi's conviction was "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years." He vowed to continue his fight to have the case brought back to the appeal courts. "I have written about this and nobody is interested," Black said. "Every lawyer who has ... read the judgment says 'this is nonsense'. It is nonsense. It really distresses me; I won't let it go."[7]

 

Black feels partially to blame for Megrahi's situation: "I feel a measure of responsibility for having suggested this form of procedure and having played a part in persuading the Libyans to agree to it. And then this happens. My concern is not about his guilt or innocence, although I do believe him to be innocent. My concern is that on the evidence led at Zeist, he ought never to have been convicted." Despite widespread concerns about the potential for pre-trial publicity prejudicing a jury, Black now believes the accused may have fared better under the conventional procedure than in the non-jury trial that he formulated. Black says: "If they had been tried by an ordinary Scottish jury of 15, who were given standard instructions about how they must approach the evidence, standard instructions about reasonable doubt and what must happen if there is a reasonable doubt about the evidence, no Scottish jury could have convicted Megrahi on the evidence led at the trial."