"Compassionate Grounds"

[Valerunner]

Al-Megrahi released on compassionate grounds after 1988 bombing.

This is retardation at its finest.

For once, I agree with Clinton with this case. Prostate cancer or not, the man is 57 and he hasn't finished his life sentence. If this becomes a trend, we may as well watch the world burn.

I'm not saying that releasing a criminal on compassionate grounds is wrong, but this man killed 270 people in one fell swoop and he deserves the life sentence. It may be cruel, but here's a compromise.

Send Al-Megrahi back to Libya to serve the rest of his life sentence and give him all the medical care he needs. Something similar happened with the Philippines' former President Estrada; he was severely ill so he was sent to the General Hospital yet he was still on house arrest, guarded by the army. And this was only for plundering the government's money.

Not sure if this made any sense.

 

[Ruby]

What will we gain by keeping him locked up?

 

[Valerunner]

What will we gain by keeping him locked up?

Nothing, but it's simply a matter of principle.

Like I said before, if we began to do this for every terminally ill criminal regardless of the crime, it would be a matter of time before we abolish jails because it's too cruel. Not to mention that this man is an extremist. Say he survives cancer. What's stopping him from hijacking another plane and causing another disaster, this time the scale of the WTC.

 

[Ruby]

On your first point, we have jails for three good reasons.

1 To turn the criminal into an honest citizen
2 To protect the public
3 To discourage other criminals

Locking this man up for two weeks more will do none of that. There is a smaller, fourth reason for having jails, and that is to satisfy the victim's desire for revenge, but as far as I am concerned, on its own that is not enough. Something must be in it for the public, or we might as well arrest someone at random after every crime and tell the victim that he did it. You appealed to reason 2, when you said that Al-Megrahi might survive cancer and hijack another plane, but he is not going to survive cancer, because it is terminal. He will die in days. Nobody would have let him go if he had a chance of living. (And there would be no such thing as compassionate grounds if 'But there's always a tiny chance he'll live' was a sound objection.)

 

[surskitty]

He's not exactly likely to go hurt more people while he is dying of cancer. Spending even more tax dollars to keep him in prison while he's harmless anyway is a violation of my principles.

 

[Valerunner]

That may be, but cancer or not, he still bombed a plane and killed 270 people just before Christmas. It is only fair that he serves the full sentence just as anyone else. As I've said before, sending him to a prison in Libya and caring for him may be the best compromise. Or maybe put him on house arrest.

 

[Tarvos]

He doesn't need any of that. The guy can barely put one foot before the other, he's not a threat.

 

[Tailsy]

Uh, the man is terminally ill. He isn't going to be able to serve his full sentence because he'll be dead. He's terminally ill. He is not going to survive. Regardless of whether he bombed the plane over Lockerbie or not - which seems to be highly controversial anyway - he's hardly likely going to be able to orchestrate another bombing in the days he has left. Seriously.

Also apparently this is important enough to, ahem, set up this website. :'D WE'RE IMPORTANT

 

[surskitty]

That may be, but cancer or not, he still bombed a plane and killed 270 people just before Christmas.

Which is terrible, sure, but he's had almost all of his punishment and sparing him from the rest while he's half-dead already and dying isn't going to let him do it again.

What possible gain is there from keeping him in there at this point?

 

[Ruby]

To be straight with you, Grimdour, we all get why you think what you think. You believe in a law of Justice, and it is telling you that Al-Megrahi is evil and needs punishing. But there is no law of Justice. For us at least, it is merely a question of whether punishing him is useful.

 

[Valerunner]

To be straight with you, Grimdour, we all get why you think what you think. You believe in a law of Justice, and it is telling you that Al-Megrahi is evil and needs punishing. But there is no law of Justice. For us at least, it is merely a question of whether punishing him is useful.

I understand that, but another point which I completely skipped is the deal to strengthen ties with Libya.

While this is all happening, Brown turned his head and congratulated the England team instead of commenting on this issue. This shows that Parliament doesn't want anything to do with this deal so that if anything happens and Libya reveals the negotiations (British oil for Megrahi), Brown has plausible deniability.

 

[Ruby]

Whether Megrahi did it, whether he was framed, whether there were deals with Libya, whether the Scottish government was pushed - all this is too murky for any of us know. Talk and even debate about it if you like, but the secrets are so well kept that personally, I have nothing to say.

 

[Lorem Ipsum]

I'm of split minds on this. On one hand, al-Megrahi did kill 270 people, and he deserves to rot for that. But to be honest, he has terminal cancer, greatly restricting what he can do; so that's like a prison in itself. He's also got release conditions, which means he can only stay in Tripoli. And, in a sense, if he did commit the crime, which was never conclusively proved, he will have to live with the fact that he killed those innocent people for the rest of his life, however short that might be.

Also, I think that we need to demonstrate as a nation, and indeed a world, that we will not stoop down to the level of these terrorists; and that we will show compassion for somebody who did not do so. I can see that being torturous for any criminal like al-Megrahi, having to face the real world where everybody hates you and you have to live with horrific things that you have caused.

As the Scottish Justice Secretary said, 'he now has a sentence imposed on him by a higher power'.

 

[Ruby]

Arranging for him to be tortured by guilt is still aimless and still costs money.

 

[Lorem Ipsum]

No, it doesn't; you've obviously misread what I've written. I said that setting him free exposes him to public fury, and that public fury will constantly remind him of his crime, even if he isn't in prison.

 

[Ruby]

Well, perhaps it will not cost money, but the point is that there is no reason for it to be a consideration at all. We don't need vindictiveness in the back of our minds whenever we decide what to do with a murderer, thief or arsonist. Vindictiveness is just an instinct and it should not be in charge of the judiciary.

 

[Vladimir Putin's LJ]

post the lockerbiest cartoons u got

(guess what country they come from)

 

[Saith]

...Don't, like, a lot of people get terminal cancer? You know, non-murderer people? Apparantly 1 in 3 people get cancer, so that would mean 1 in 3 prisoners. Which, though it would save a lot of cash, would see a third of all murderers be released. Of course, I know that's skewed, not all cancer is terminal/qualifies for release, but basically, by letting him out they're sorta... I don't know, they're forgiving him, I guess. Which a government is not allowed to do. There are no exceptions to the law, so why they let a plane hijackery guy out, I don't know.

And, so wait, why is there no law of Justice? I figured that that's one of the more important ones. The most important one is fear, of course. In my opinion, anyway.

 

[Ruby]

And, so wait, why is there no law of Justice?

Because it does nothing except replace our money with other people's misery. If a prison does the four things I said earlier, it is doing enough.

1 To turn the criminal into an honest citizen
2 To protect the public
3 To discourage other criminals
4 To satisfy the victim's desire for revenge

If it can't do the fourth, it can't do the fourth. If it can only do the fourth, the criminal might as well be let out.

 

[Saith]

Umm... Okay yeah, fair enough with that, but still~