Megrahi's Release

30/8/09

The Lockerbi Bomber fiasco has been front page news for a while now.

I have generally refrained from commenting because I think the British Justice System wastes time holding foreign nationals in British Custodial Facilities when we should simply export them and ban them from reentering the country if they have committed indictable (serious) offences.

We would, after all, save circa £38,000 per year per prisoner, not to mention all the facilities they are entitled to such as relevant cultural, ethnic and religious paraphenalia (and according to prison guards at Canterbury Foreign National Prison this includes Ghetto Blasters playing reggae etc).

However, following today's revelations in The Sunday Times of letters from Jack Straw identifying plans to send Megrahi back at least two years ago for financial and fuel benefit, one has to wonder if he has even got Prostate Cancer.

Given that two days ago it was reported that he was given three months by a GP and not a specialist, the plot thickens as to the nature of his cancer and his release.

Having done one of my dissertations on healthcare in prisons in the UK six years ago, I am well aware of the atrocious nature of the health service in HMPS facilities, considered to be 80% less effective in male prisons and 150% less effective in female prisons than the NHS. WHich is staggeringly bad.

Rather like the Telegraph revelations on MP's expenses, the Lockerbi Bomber scenario appears to be a saga of staggered revelations that are damning this government further. Will the truth ever be discovered?

(And this is without getting into the debate about whether he was guilty or not!)