Freeing Megrahi ‘hit trust in politicians’

KENNY MacAskill’s decision to free the Lockerbie bomber has deepened the public’s mistrust of politicians, Terry Waite will say when he gives a lecture in Scotland this week.

The former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury will suggest that the public outcry over the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi has undermined the credibility of politicians.

Speaking before he travels north of the Border, Waite, who spent five years in captivity at the hands of Islamic Jihad, said he believed in compassionate release for terminally ill prisoners.

MacAskill freed Megrahi after doctors estimated he only had around three months to live. However, Megrahi is still alive in Libya, more than two years after he was allowed to walk out of a Scottish jail.

Yesterday, Waite said he will address the Megrahi issue this week when he talks on “Compassion and Justice” at the annual Sacro lecture at Edinburgh University’s Playfair Library.

“I don’t believe in being soft on crime or criminals, but I hold to the principle of compassion,” Waite told Scotland on Sunday.

“But the public outcry [over Megrahi] reveals a couple of things: what a complex and miserable issue it is, and it reveals a certain lack of confidence or trust by the general public in those who have been in a position to make decisions on these matters. Generally the public are not terribly trustful that they are being told the truth – that politicians are necessarily telling the truth.”

Waite will also say that he believes too many people are being sent to overcrowded prisons and will argue for reforms to the justice system that would allow more criminals to undertake community-based disposals.

He said too many people who would benefit from treatment elsewhere were being sent to prison.

“Statistics show, if you take alcohol and drug dependence into account, that 80 per cent of people who are imprisoned are suffering from some form of mental disability – either acute personality disorder or more severe mental illness leading to psychosis. We are doing that because there is nowhere else to put them.

“We have closed our large mental hospitals. It is very difficult to get effective mental treatment so they go into prison. So do we need a complete review of our whole system of imprisonment?”

He added: “I do advocate more community service orders, if they are properly organised.”

Waite also said prisons should become part of the community to try to remove some of the stigma surrounding jails. “The loss of freedom is one of the greatest punishments you can face, and I know that from my own experience,” he added.