I don’t know whether or not the Lockerbie bomber is innocent or not. But I do know that he was convicted and whether rightly or wrongly he has been sent home to Libya without his sentence being overturned. And I’m sure that for him that sticks in his craw a little; if of course he is innocent.
Officially then, a guilty man has been sent home on compassionate grounds. But he now faces, according to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, “a sentence imposed by a higher power”.
Why should God be burdened with this affair?
Does Mr.MacAskill feel that God is less compassionate than the Scottish Justice system?
I can’t shake off the feeling that Mr MacAskill’s words are like those of a snooty class captain in a school telling a naughty little boy that he is really annoyed with him but that when the principal comes along he is really in for it.
I wonder is it not a bit patronising to the rest of us to put himself and God on the same level. Is he in touch with this “higher power”? How does he know that this higher power is even bothered with what we do on earth? What if any of the people that died on that plane were atheist? Would they find comfort in such a statement?
Should it not be up to us humans through the proper systems to judge. By saying that the decision has now been taken by God, actually demeans Western democracy and the systems of justice that are in place. It is in fact positively medieval to even mention God in the same breath as human justice.
Why does a higher power have to come into it at all? The man was found guilty and convicted by us. He has been let go by us. Using God and the ’sentence of cancer’ to justify these actions is a cop out. But what is worse is that it is wrapped up as compassion. What package is under the wrapping paper?
