Compare and Contrast

Here we have two different real life stories. One person, responsible for the death of at least one person, and collectively of 7 people, serving life in prison and terminally ill. This person is guilty brutally stabbing their victim(s) to death while they pleaded for their lives. The other, also serving life in prison for murdering 270 people, also terminally ill. This individual blew up a jet liner over Scotland and sent hundreds of people plummeting to their deaths. Their bodies left craters in the ground where they landed. Wreckage from the plane also crashed down on the town below, killing an incinerating others in their sleep. Both people have only a few months left to live and ask for release so they can die at home.

To make this perfectly clear, I don’t think either one should be released early on compassionate grounds. They showed their victims no mercy, and none should be shown to them.

Compare then the different outcomes.

First, this story:

The man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago received a boisterous welcome when his plane landed in his native Libya on Thursday.

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was freed from prison in Scotland, with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill citing compassionate grounds for the release and saying al Megrahi was “going home to die.”

A large crowd, waving flags and honking horns, greeted al Megrahi at the military airport in Tripoli.

The 57-year-old has three months to live, according to Scottish authorities.

“Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available,” MacAskill said. “Our beliefs dictate that justice be served but mercy be shown.”

Al Megrahi issued a statement that his attorney Tony Kelly read to reporters. In it, al Megrahi said the families of the Lockerbie victims “have my sincere sympathy for their unimaginable loss.”

“Many people … I know are upset that my appeal has come to the end, but nothing more can be done about the circumstances of the Lockerbie bombing,” al Megrahi said in the statement.

“I share their frustration. I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out, until my diagnosis of cancer.”

Al Megrahi continued to maintain his innocence, complaining that he had to spend years in prison for something he did not do.

“The remaining days of my life will have to be spent under the shadow of the wrongness of my conviction,” he said.

Al Megrahi said he never will return to Scotland, and he offered his gratitude and best wishes to the Scottish people.

“To those victims’ relatives who can bear to hear me say this, they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered,” he said.

“To those who bear me ill will, the only thing I can say is that I do not return that to you.”

According to Kelly, his client “was in good spirits” this morning and was looking forward to seeing his mother, wife and children in Libya.

Kelly said, “His disease is not only terminal but is in its final stages.”

MacAskill said he agreed with the 2001 conviction of al Megrahi for the Lockerbie bombing — the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed on U.K. soil. He also said he supported a severe sentence. But he said al Megrahi’s lack of compassion for his 270 victims should not be a reason for Scotland to deny compassion to him.

Compared to:

Susan Atkins, the terminally ill Charles Manson follower who admitted stabbing actress Sharon Tate 40 years ago, lost what was likely to be her last bid for freedom.

Atkins, who suffers from brain cancer, slept through most of the four-hour hearing Wednesday during which her husband-lawyer pleaded for her release and families of victims of the Sharon Tate-Labianca killings urged that she be kept behind bars until she dies.

In a dramatic moment — one of the few in which Atkins opened her eyes — Atkins’ husband, James Whitehouse, led her through a recitation of the 23rd Psalm, with Atkins concluding in a strong voice, “My God is an amazing God.”

Debra Tate, sister of the actress who was 8 1/2 months pregnant when she was killed, told the parole commissioners that she would have a 40-year-old nephew if her sister had lived. She said of Atkins, “I will pray for her soul when she draws her last breath, but until then I think she should remain in this controlled situation.”

Parole commissioner Tim O’Hare said that he and the other commissioner who presided over the hearing, Jan Enloe, based their decision heavily on the “atrocious nature” of the 1969 killings and said that Atkins never fully understood the magnitude of her crimes.

Atkins, 61, had been expected to die of brain cancer over a year ago but continues to cling to life. She also had a leg amputated.

She was denied compassionate release in July 2008 after she was diagnosed and given only months to live. Wednesday’s hearing at the Central California Women’s Facility at Chowchilla was her regular parole hearing as a life prisoner. She stands convicted of the seven Tate-LaBianca murders, one of the most notorious mass murders in California history.

I don’t know about you, but to me, something smells rotten in Scotland.

“Go here http://tinyurl.com/km… »« The Religion of Peace…and Rape

The Religion of Peace…and Rape

Part of me wants to not believe what I read, but I know it’s accurate. Many past examples of the brutality perpetrated by these people, not to mention the many acts of mass murder using explosives, leave little doubt in my mind that this is an accurate accounting.

I am going to place a (more) tag here because of the of the disturbing nature of this post.

(more…)

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