US Senate hearing on Megrahi release...

The other day, I found myself wondering what those valiant seekers after truth, Senators Menendez, Lautenberg, Gillibrand and Schumer were up to these days. There was plenty of coverage of Scottish and Westminster Governments' refusals to be put to the question by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the American Senate on the compassionate release of Mr Megrahi. As regular readers will recall, while styling themselves humble servants of clarity, throughout these American politicians have behaved disgracefully, cooking up wild allegations, deliberately misunderstanding processes, impugning the integrity of people unable to respond on the same public terms, persisting in their innuendos once furnished with the correct facts - and generally showing the worst of bad faith. I certainly accept that folk have a right to ask questions, to dispute the justness of decisions, to make up their own minds. I'm no tyrant of the mind and accept that reasonable people can reasonably differ on the compassionate release. A fair-minded exploration of the facts and an attempt to understand what transpired has not been much in evidence here. Instead, Menendez and friends delivered an amateur dramatic troupe's rendition of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. That said, Scottish advocate Jonathan Mitchell QC also makes a series of vital points about the Scots law and policy on compassionate release, including the real possibility that if MacAskill had rejected Megrahi's application, the decision could be judicially reviewed - and reviewed successfully. Moreover, the looming pachyderm in the chamber is the more fundamental question - never raised in the U.S. Senate hearing - whether Megrahi was properly convicted or whether he was the victim of a miscarriage of public justice.

Alex Salmond rebuffed their innuendos and allegations in a series of stingingly clear letters, many of which I've replicated here before for your information. Rather less attention was paid to what actually transpired in Washington in the absence of Hague, Straw, Salmond or MacAskill. Helpfully, our American friends extensively cover and archive the operations of their legislature on C-SPAN, so finding the relevant footage was  rather straightforward. Menendez convened a small clutch of his fellows and took evidence on the 29th of September in the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Needless to say, our friendly senators lived down to expectations...