In the 19 years since Pan Am 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, killing 270 people, Scottish justice and international diplomacy have been problematically knotted. The relationship between the Scottish and the UK Governments is proving a particularly tangled strand. International relations have moved on since both the atrocity and the 2001 trial under Scots law at Camp Zeist, which convicted Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and required him to serve his sentence in Scotland. In particular, the so-called "deal in the desert" between Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi last year led to an agreement on the repatriation of Libyans in British jails, opening the possibility of Megrahi being transferred to Libya. Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, want Megrahi, the highest-profile Libyan prisoner here, to be excluded from the prisoner transfer agreement.
In the 19 years since Pan Am 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, killing 270 people, Scottish justice and international diplomacy have been problematically knotted. The relationship between the Scottish and the UK Governments is proving a particularly tangled strand.
