"Three Year Old charged with crime in Scotland!?!?!?!?!" Topic

What in the world is going on here?

I don't think its possible for a three year old to commit a crime in most common law jurisdictions.

First the Lockerbie [sp] Bomber and now this?

link

Utterly beyond my limited comprehension.

mjc

They can ask him about what is going on, but he cannot be charged as he is under the age of criminal responsibility

And COMPASSIONATE DISCHARGE FOR A DYING PERSON WHO IS NO DANGER TO THE PUBLIC is a feature of many legal systems.

Not just Scotland

And the Daily Record is a rag

WHO IS NO DANGER TO THE PUBLIC

--debatable

He is dying of cancer, he is unlikely to be able to raise a spoon in anger.

He might also be innocent, there is enough of a doubt to sustain an appeal, the only reason he had for dropping it is that the appeal would consume what remains of his life

Doesn't sound like they're after the 3yr old so much as looking to go after the parents for raising little sociopaths.

Ever see that movie 'Eden Lake'?

On the 3 year old sociopath. He is under the age of criminal responsibility – so can not be charged. He's parents could have some charges brought against them for neglect – the option of taking the little out into the Highlands and dealing with him under rule 303 not being an option.

In fairness to the Daily Record the story also appear word for word in the Telegraph and so probably came from the AP

As to the Lockerbie incident, there remains a good deal of skepticism within the UK as to the guilt of either the Libyan government in general or Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in particular were involved. There are other governments or organisations from the Middle East that had motive and opportunity to commit the crime.

But what, specifically, were they doing? Vandalism consisting of what? My three year old has been known to scribble on the kitchen walls with a crayon (!) If he did this at a restuarant would he be branded a sociopath and arrested (in Scotland)?
I think a few more facts are required to determine whether the police were being a little over zelous.

And COMPASSIONATE DISCHARGE FOR A DYING PERSON WHO IS NO DANGER TO THE PUBLIC

Or was the fall guy because of a changing international situation… So freaking obvious who actually did it, but Libya was the convenient political pariah at the time when a certain Middle Eastern country suddenly became cozy with a major power. It's amazing all the folks who are so enraged over Scotland's actions have no memory of recent history.\

Hopefully that was as far from CA as I tried to put it.
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Tim

"He is dying of cancer, he is unlikely to be able to raise a spoon in anger"

I'll believe that when his corpse is rotting in the grave.

as for his supposed innocence because he was appealing his conviction there are far too many cases of "innocent" people caught red handed appealing their convictions just because you have the right to appeal and are pursuing that right doesn't mean you are innocent just that you have a good legal team.

Photon

The conviction has also been criticised as unsafe.

Doesn't mean he is innocent, but it does mean that there is enough of a doubt to warrant further investigation.

Not saying he was squeaky clean either, he does appear to have been a kind of fixer and sanction buster.

But compassionate release is a part of our law, English Law, European Law etc.

It is a quirk of fate and crap legislation that a Minister is involved in the process. It should really be purely judicial, which is why in Scotland the Minister absents himself from Political interference as far as possible, and relies on the judgement of the professionals involved.

And back to the 3 year old, it's the parents who need to answer for this

Yep – Scotland has the lowest age of responsibility in Europe, but even there it's 8, and I believe a rise to 12 is in the pipeline.

It is, there has been some soul searching about the 8

He was sentanced to "life in prison." Isn't that just another way of saying you will die in prison? So why should having only two months to live change that? At some point doesn't everyone with a life-in-prison sentance have only two months to live?

What if he had a year to live? Would that qualify him for a get-outta-jail-free card? Or should he be kept in prison for 10 months before being released?

What about the victim's families? Aren't they deserving of compassion? How do we think they feel knowing that a car thief would likely spend more time in prison than the guy who was convicted of murdering their children. And to add insult to their injury, he was given a hero's welcome upon his return home. Why do you think those people cheered him so, because they believed he was wrongly convicted, or because they believed he was not?

mandt2

The answer boils down to therese two precepts.

1) The business of the Law is justice and not vengeance. This is why European Law systems including Scots Law doesn't let the families dictate the sentence

2) Because we are better than he is. We are decent human beings and he is not.

And

1) The business of the Law is justice and not vengeance. This is why European Law systems including Scots Law doesn't let the families dictate the sentence

And your point is? Are you saying that compassion for victims and their familes should not be considered in this case, but that it should for the convicted murderer? If I recall correctly your position is that al Megrahi's release was right and good as an act of compassion. I am saying that the act of showing compassion to al Megrahi was a corresponding act of anti-compassion (or cruelty) to the victim's families.

Is your position that al Megarhi is deserving of compassion at the expense of the emotions of the victim's families?

2) Because we are better than he is. We are decent human beings and he is not.

We do not need to pardon him from his sentance to demonstrate that we are better than he. He murdered 270 people. We did not. He deserved to be executed, instead he was fortunate enough to be sentanced to prison for the rest of his life.

So, would you pardon every convicted murderer or rapist if they are diagnosed with a terminal illness?

More than one commentator has pointed out the the Scots were actually dodging a bullet on this one.

The retrial would have exposed the serious shortcomings in the original conviction.

link

Extract from link:

The Maltese shopkeeper who had identified al-Megrahi, Tony Gauci, turned out to be living in Australia, supported by several million dollars the Americans had paid him for his evidence.

The allegation the timer for the bomb had been supplied to Libya by the Swiss manufacturer Mebo turned out to be false. The owner of Mebo, Edwin Bollier, revealed that he had turned down an offer of $4 USD million from the FBI in 1991 to testify that he had sold his MST-13 timers to Libya.

One of Bollier's former employees, Ulrich Lumpert, did testify at al-Megrahi's trial that MST-13 timers had been supplied to Libya – but in 2007 he admitted he had lied at the trial.

And this year it was revealed Pan Am's baggage area at London's Heathrow airport was broken into 17 hours before Pan Am 103 took off. (The police knew that 12 years ago, but kept it secret at al-Megrahi's trial.) The theory the fatal bag was put on a feeder flight from Malta became even less likely.

Don't get me wrong. Whoever is responsible for Lockerbie deserves no mercy. At all.

It's just that the evidence that al-Megrahi did it was paper thin, paid-for and also relied on the police withholding other evidence.

The Scots can claim compassion as their only motivation. But they also avoided the embarrassment of a retrial that would have exposed the first trial failed to meet the most elementary standards of justice.

I have no idea if al-Megrahi did it, but he sure as heck was not proven to do it beyond reasonable doubt. The evidence against him isn't a 'slam dunk'. It isn't really even a dribble.

Isn't that just another way of saying you will die in prison?

Hi Mandt,

In the USA, yes, but not most other western democracies. Mind you, there are plenty of cases where the public, me included, wishes that were so, but there is also "dangerous offender" provisions which do provide for that but is not used that often, except in exceptional circumstances. In Canada, "life" means 25 years, in Europe, I believe (but could be wrong) it's 19. I am routinely shocked when watching US crime documentaries at the huge sentences handed out.

The evidence against him isn't a 'slam dunk'. It isn't really even a dribble.

It was universally felt to be a Syrian or other agent's job for Iran. These columns are worth reading:

link

link

To summarize, Lockerbie happened soon after the tragic misidentification that lead to the accidental shooting down of the Iranian airline full of just as innocent people. Syria has always been Iran's puppet for that sort of thing and everyone "knew" it had to be a Syrian job for Iran. Unfortunately, the Gulf Situation cropped up while the investigation was going on and it was important to have Syria as part of the coalition against Iraq. So it just wouldn't do to have them blamed for the heinous crime that was Lockerbie. But, hey, Libya was still a pariah, and someone had to be blamed. That's when the Maltese shopkeeper suddenly appeared.

This is why it's better to take the time to be informed about the circumstances rather than just jumping to conclusions. It's also why Libya welcomed the guy home like they did – they always felt he was a fall guy in a rubber stamped kangaroo court for the reasons I give in the preceding paragraph.

I must say, I was as outraged as many US people were when I first heard about the release – "what the were these Scots thinking, anyway?". But further research changed my mind.
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Tim

Ditto, That's all very interesting speculation. But assuming that Syria would risk the wrath of the United States as a favor to Iran seems to me to be a highly unlikely scenario. Rather the death of Khaddafi's adopted daughter, and the injuring of two of his sons as a result of the bombing attack ordered by Reagan two years earlier, is a much more direct and therefore likely link.

Besides, considering the complex and intertwined nature of Middle East terror networks, the revelation that Iran or Syria may have been behind the Lockerbee bombing does not in itself exonerate al Megrahi. Remember that it was a terror force of Saudi Arabians and Egyptians financed by an expatriot Saudi operating out of Afghanistan that attacked the WTC.

Further, initially Iran was the primary suspect in the bombing, but the investigation ruled them out. So it's not as if the Iran connection wasn't considered.

But The issue here is not whether al Megrahi is guilty or not. If there is enough exculpatory evidence to justify nullification of the previous judgement, then he should do what he was doing, what every other person in prison must do if they believe they are innocent, appeal. In fact he has already appealed, twice I believe, unsuccessfully. Apparently the Scottish courts have not been as impressed with the wrongly convicted theory as some here do.

The issue here has nothing to do with the law. At its face al Megrahi was given a "compassionate" release. The issue here is whether or not a convicted mass-murderer is deserving of this compassion, especially when such an act would have very painful repurcussions for the families of the victims.

Ironically Hurcheon posted this above:

1) The business of the Law is justice and not vengeance. This is why European Law systems including Scots Law doesn't let the families dictate the sentence

This implies that compassion for the families of victims has no place when it comes to sentancing. Yet Hurcheon supports compassion for the convicted perpetrator. Explain to me how that is not a contradiction of opinion.

Look, Bernie Maddoff, recently sentanced to 150 years, was just diagnosed with cancer. Should we let him go? If rather than being strangled, Jeffrey Dahmer had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, should he have been set free?

Is it possible that there has been so much recent speculation about this case in some regions of the world that al Megrahi has become something of a personality, and the 270 victims of the bombing have become…well, nothing more than a number?

Hurcheon's statement, "The business of the Law is justice and not vengeance," is partially correct. The law is not about vengance, nor is it about compassion, hence the lady holding the balanced scales and blindfolded. If you want to set a convicted person free because there is reasonable evidence to indicate he was wrongly convicted, then I'm right there with you. But we should not be setting people convicted of murder free because we like them, or we admire them, or we feel sorry for them because they are sick, or their mother is sick, or their second cousin twice removed is sick. It's a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line?

Besides, all of this may very well be moot. Niether compassion nor the law may have very much to do with al Megrahi's release.

That was a good rebuttal mandt. Nonetheless, I'll take issue with your first statement:

Syria would risk the wrath of the United States as a favor to Iran seems to me to be a highly unlikely scenario

Recent history in the Middle East (70s until now) does not seem to bear this out.

I am still convinced of the doubts that have been posed by the articles I quoted and of the shakiness of the case against the Libyan. I feel that had a lot to do with the compassionate release – with the slam dunk examples you gave, no, it would have been unjust to let let such excuses for humanity go. But in the Libyan's case, the case was about to be re-tried or appealed before the Scottish high court as is my understanding. Based on my experience with high courts here (sis and dad are Canadian supreme court justices), it's my understanding that the high court has to agree to hearing the appeal based on presentations given and that had already been done. That's enough doubt for me.

Really, there has been a lot of injustices done around the world in history and current events as a result of international relations.

Remember that it was a terror force of Saudi Arabians and Egyptians financed by an expatriot Saudi operating out of Afghanistan that attacked the WTC.

Mostly Saudis – while I supported the attack on Afghanistan, I could never understand why Saudi Arabia was not nuked or at least bombed. That's a gut feel, though and unfair as these idiots were not representing SA, I guess, but still…
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Tim

Look, Bernie Maddoff, recently sentanced to 150 years, was just diagnosed with cancer. Should we let him go?

Well, if its terminal, and if he's no further danger to the community, then yes. Prisons are about deterrent and regulated punishment, not vindictive savagery.

Tim is right about the scots judicial system dodging the bullet. The second appeal was wihdrawn so he would be immediately relased….but had judically been reveiwed to say that the conviction was not safe in light of the newer evidence not previously disclosed…which means either an immediate aquittal or a retrial, both processes would taken longer than the man had to live, and the judicail system just wasnt brave enough to give the man a full aquittal and say sorry.

Hamas recieve lots of arms and cash from Iran via syria. There is a big religious link between Iran, he Ayatollah and Syrian Muslims. Whatever action may have been taken by syrian nationals in support of Iran was not necssarilly sanctioned by the Syrian giovernment

Megraghi's co-accused was aquitted due to lack of any tangable evidence.

Personally, I wish they had said "we are letting him go because it looks like the FBI could have been fabricating evidence, and withholding other evidence that didn't suit " but that is not very PC, even if it was the truth.