What does Hillary know?
So it looks like Abdelbaset Ali al_Magrahi is to be freed before the weekend. Compassionate grounds - he has less than 12 weeks to live. In Scotland, as elsewhere, the decision by Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill will be greeted with a mixture of outrage and "not before time".
We should not conflate the release on compassionate grounds with the matter of guilt. They are two separate issues. I detect a narrow majority in Scotland in favour of the release on the grounds that compassion is what separates us from the terrorist.
Whether you want to go down the religious road or the ethical road, the argument is that the man is dying, can do no further harm and should be returned to die in the bosom of his family. From across the Atlantic, I've read comments to the effect that "he showed no compassion - why should we?" and other Old Testament sentiments.
I hold no strong views, but do veer towards the quality of mercy.
The issue of his guilt for the Lockerbie bombing is another matter altogether. The whole incident stank from the start - and that was years before al-Magrahi was even placed in the frame. I am not a conspiracy theorist, as anyone who knows me will testify. What worries me about the Lockerbie incident is what we don't know.
I declare an interest - I was on the scene at Sherwood Crescemt within 35 minutes on the plane having come down. Living in Dumfries, 12 miles distant, I was asked to do a turn on the BBC Nine o' Clock. Kerosene was still drifting down, smearing my my widscreen as I drove into town. So overwhelmed were the local police force, there was not even a cordon round the main crash site and I circled Sherwood Crescent and the main wreckage on foot before heading for Lochmaben and the nearest working phone.
I worked my intelligence sources and Middle East experts and the concensus within days was that it was the Iranians and Syrians who were responsible for a whole swatch of reasons - in the short-term political arena (the downing of the iranian passenger jet), and in the broader philosophical Middle East context (West Bank, hatred of Israel and the United States).
It was only much later that Libya came into the frame - a proposal that was initially greeted with derision, since the country's security forces are as chaotic as the rest of that ramshackle country, and only good at internal repression. They lacked the organisational ability, far less the expertise, to mount an external operation. Malta? Don't make me laugh. We needn't even go into the debacle over Wpc Yvonne Fletcher. Incompetent cowboys.
As the years past, I have observed this farrago of this patsy with disbelief and disdain. Thos one won't go away but I doubt the real truth will emerge in my lifetime. Nobody emerges with credit - not the Scots legal system, nor UK and American intelligence, the israelis, the iranians and the Syrians, nor the Libyans who handed him over so easily.
In short, on balance, I'm glad al-Magrahi is to be released.
It's just a pity he did not live long enough to pursue his appeal, which would, at least, have brought some facts to light. Very convenient all round.