Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi (the Lockerbie bomber) freed after only 8 years.
So...It seems this story is kicking up a shit storm and polarizing opinions here in the UK and from what our media says, also in the US.
Personally I don't even believe he committed the crime in the 1st place and that he was a scapegoat so that the US, UK and Libya could forge better relations. Because of this I couldn't give a monkeys whether he got released or not.
But it would seem that people do so I thought i'd start a thread.
Anyone on here even old enough to remember or give a shit about the Lockerbie bombing?
I'm not even going to presume that everyone knows about it so i'll give a little bit of info.
On the 21st of December 1988, Pan-am flight 103 was blown up in the skies over the south of Scotland as the result of a terrorist attack. Supposedly the bomb was timed to go off over the Atlantic but the plane was delayed and so it exploded over Scotland. The wreckage crashed (in part) into the town of Lockerbie as well as spreading bodies and wreckage over a 100 mile strip from the North Sea to the Irish Sea, resulting in the deaths of all 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 people in their houses on the ground.
It is the single worst terrorist attack in the UK's history
Perhaps this is the most pertinent part to remember when considering how you feel about the alleged Lockerbie bomber being freed (particularly if you believe he did it)
All 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed. Eleven residents of Lockerbie also died. Most of the passengers were from the United States. A Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry, which opened on 1 October 1990, heard that, when the cockpit broke off, tornado-force winds tore through the fuselage, tearing clothes off passengers and turning insecurely-fixed items like food and drink trolleys into lethal objects. Because of the sudden change in air pressure, the gases inside the passengers' bodies would have expanded to four times their normal volume, causing their lungs to swell and then collapse. People and objects not fixed down would have been blown out of the aircraft into the −46 °C (−50.8 °F) outside air, their 31,000-foot (9,400 m) fall lasting about two minutes. Some passengers remained attached to the fuselage by their seat belts, crashing in Lockerbie strapped to their seats.Although the passengers would have lost consciousness through lack of oxygen, forensic examiners believe some of them might have regained consciousness as they fell toward oxygen-rich lower altitudes. Forensic pathologist Dr William G. Eckert, director of the Milton Helpern International Center of Forensic Sciences at Wichita State University, who examined the autopsy evidence, told Scottish police he believed the flight crew, some of the flight attendants, and 147 other passengers survived the bomb blast and depressurization of the aircraft, and may have been alive on impact. None of these passengers showed signs of injury from the explosion itself, or from the decompression and disintegration of the aircraft.