Two mass killers, two different responses

ANY doubts that the Scottish televised election debates would be a shadow of the UK version will have been dispelled by the feisty exchanges between First Minister Alex Salmond and Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy yesterday. Issues ranging from the banking crisis to the economy drew sharp ripostes. But it was Mr Salmond's response to a question on whether he would have considered the perpetrator of the Dunblane massacre for similar compassionate release as that granted to the Libyan bomber

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi that sparked wide criticism.

Asked if Thomas Hamilton would have been granted compassionate release if suffering terminal cancer, Mr Salmond replied that he would never have been freed on such grounds. This drew attacks on two counts, first by its implication that somehow the downing of the Pan-Am airliner was less of an outrage than the Dunblane massacre; and second that it was inconsistent with previous Scottish government explanations of Megrahi's release. Justice secretary Kenny Mac-Askill has said in the wake of the decision to free Megrahi, that mercy should have been shown "no matter the severity of the atrocity perpetrated".

How can it be right to release an aircraft bomber on compassionate grounds and not Hamilton were he to have contracted terminal cancer? A neatly posed question put the SNP leader on the spot and opened up the issue to fresh critical scrutiny.