Time to close the book !

Yesterday Abdelbaset al Megrahi died of cancer in Tripoli.   He was the only person put before a court, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombing of a PanAm  airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland that caused the death of 270 people.

Even that act of retribution caused a scandal.   He was controversially released from a Scottish prison on humanitarian grounds in 2009 because it was believed that he had just three months to live.   Later it was rumoured that this release was part of a deal to gain access to Libyan oil - and relatives of the dead were bitter because this medical opinion was clearly wrong.    It seems that politics triumphed over humanity.

Now there are calls to reopen the Lockerbie case and start a fresh investigation.  Some people believe that Megrahi was innocent and that others have gone unpunished.  The British government is resisting on the grounds that events in Libya have moved too far for there to be any hope of a successful conclusion.

This seems to be a rational point of view.   Libya has gone through a violent civil war and the man who admitted giving the green light to the Lockerbie bombing - Dictator Gaddafi - met a violent death at the hands of his countrymen.    There is still no authoritative central government in the country and fighting is still continuing in many areas.   There is absolutely no hope of conducting a serious enquiry in those circumstances.

It is time to close the book on Lockerbie.   Twenty-four years have passed and the trail has gone cold - and probably many people who knew secrets are now dead, either of old age or because of the bloody civil war.
Airline passengers will be better served by concentrating on the present threats from terrorist groups - and bringing down airliners in flight is still high on the list of priorities for al Qaeda.

We learned a lot from Lockerbie - and our defences have proved adequate despite several recent attempts.
It would be a waste of time delving into the past when our efforts would be better spent combatting the new breed of bombers who are using science to perfect their trade.     That seems to be a war that never ends !