Alex Salmond blasts Scottish opposition for playing politics over Lockerbie

By Oliver Farrimond

FIRST MINISTER Alex Salmond has slammed Scottish opposition parties for playing political games over the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

When asked yesterday if the Scottish Labour Party and others had been unduly politicising Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s controversial decision to release the convicted terrorist, Salmond called their objections “daft.”

He said: “Some of the stuff the opposition parties have come out with is daft.

“Let’s say Kenny MacAskill decided to ignore the evidence from prison governors and medical experts saying Megrahi had three months to live, and he had been left to die in a Scottish prison.

“People would rightly have said: ‘Why couldn’t you have granted a compassionate release? Was it because you were frightened of making an unpopular decision? Did you bow to pressure from whatever quarter?’”

“Where would Scotland stand then?”