Megrahi’s future

Is it really practical, or even desirable, to return the Lockerbie bomber to prison either in Scotland or Libya? Opinion polls may reflect public sentiment but their findings do not always take account of what is realistic or workable (your report, 15 August).

Too much can be made of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi regime’s decision to put Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on public display at a rally. It was upsetting to many who lost loved ones in the atrocity. But arguably it simply reflected two things: first, the insensitivity of the Libyan administration in bringing a terminally ill man to a gathering of that kind; second, a desperate desire for a flagging regime to show Nato and the international community that it still has a semblance of control.

Dr Jim Swire says he fears American forces may take precipitate action to arrest or kill Megrahi. There is a difference between this situation and the one that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.

The conviction and compassionate release of the Libyan followed a judicial process which many have criticised but was nonetheless undertaken by a country which is a constituent part of one of the United States’ main allies.

It would be an international outrage if action of the kind Dr Swire envisages was taken even in the dying days of the Libyan regime.

When that regime does fall its successors must show maturity and dignity over the question of the bomber’s future.

Bob Taylor

Shiel Court

Glenrothes