When Alexander Litvinenko was murdered (in Muswell Hill), poisoned – I challenged the Government and then Home Secretary John Reid to pursue his killer without fear nor favour, however close the trail got to the Russian establishment.
That is the promise I got from him – but in the end – and despite taking Mrs Litvinenko for a private meeting with David Miliband in which he also promised to bring this to the European table to put pressure on from that angle – justice has never been done.
And it will never be done – because not only is there definitely fear and favour – but it would seem that real justice will always take second place to trade deals and arms deals, with political expedience coming way above the justice that ordinary folk believe in.
If the Libyan bomber had genuinely been released for genuine compassionate reasons because he was genuinely going to die within three months and we are a compassionate country and there were genuinely no other considerations – then we could argue the genuine debate about whether he should have died in prison or be released.
As it is – we have been duped again. It is quite clear, after all the leaks and all the published papers of correspondence and the contradictory statements (contradicting themselves usually)that Straw and Brown have made, how justice gets treated as an expendable add-on. The size of the tragedy at Lockerbie highlights throws into sharp relief that expendable face of justice.
Lynne Featherstone 
With respect, his release was nothing to do with the UK government however much Messers Blair, Brown and Straw might wish. It was a matter for the Scottish Justice secretary to decide – he ruled out a prisoner transfer which is what the UK government had sought and released Megrahi under scots law on compassionate grounds as he was bound to do in our law.
Now just look at the politics. There is no way the SNP government would have done London’s bidding and any attempt to force a solution from south would have been manna from Heaven for Alex Salmond – a crucial by election and a referendum on independence coming up and the UK government gift him interference in scots law.
The basic point seems to me that there is a lot of genuine doubt about the safety of the conviction and it would have been preferable for Megrahi’s appeal to have gone forward although I’d bet my house that london and Washington are releived beyond measure that he’s withdrawn it. He looks to have terminal cancer and my guess is that the Scottish government didn’t want him dead in Greenock jail with questions over his guilt – hence the transfer. This suited everyone except the families in the USA who are more than understandably horrified but look at the reaction from the British families involved.