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9:59am (UK)
Lockerbie Relative 'Offended' at Mandela Input
By Gordon Darroch, PA News
A relative of one of the victims of the Lockerbie
bombing today said he was “deeply offended” by former South African
president Nelson Mandela’s intervention in the affair.
John Bacciochi, whose 19-year-old daughter Clare was
killed in the 1988 disaster, criticised Mr Mandela for visiting convicted
terrorist Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in the Scottish prison where
he is being held.
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Bacciochi,
from Tamworth, Staffs, also said relatives who attended a meeting with Mr
Mandela last weekend “may have been overawed by his presence”.
On Sunday, Mr Mandela met British relatives of those
who died on board Pan Am flight 103 when it was blown up in the skies
over Lockerbie.
He has called for Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of
carrying out the bombing, to be given a fresh appeal.
Mr Mandela was one of the key brokers of the deal
that saw Megrahi and another suspect handed over to stand trial at a
specially-convened Scottish court in the Netherlands.
He also told the relatives he would like to see
Megrahi transferred from Barlinnie jail, near Glasgow, to a Muslim
country such as Egypt or Tunisia to serve out his life sentence.
But Mr Bacciochi hit back: “Megrahi is a convicted
terrorist, having been found guilty of taking part in the murder of 270
innocent victims.
“Why on earth is Mr Mandela showing concern for this
particular terrorist?”
He added: “As for psychological persecution, Mr
Mandela should not invite us to meet him to support his cause, but visit
my family and experience the suffering that we have been cursed with, not
just for the past 14 years but for the rest of our lives.”
Prime Minister Tony Blair has already effectively
ruled out the idea of transferring Megrahi after the issue was raised in
Parliament last month by Father of the House Tam Dalyell.
Mr Blair said then: “The very agreement that we made
was that he would come to a Scottish prison – in fact, that anyone who
was convicted would come to a Scottish prison.”
Labour Dumfries MP Russell Brown this week responded
to Mr Mandela’s comments by calling on Mr Blair to “stand firm” against
calls to move Megrahi to a Muslim country.
He said: “People need to remember that Megrahi is in
Barlinnie because he was convicted of the worst mass murder ever to occur
in Scotland.
“There really is a danger in the constant
speculation over Megrahi that this suddenly becomes forgotten and that he
is turned into some sort of VIP and the whole trial becomes no more than
a circus.”
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