I was Wrong and Naive

Let's re-visit Lockerbie.

The man found guilty of blowing up a plane in 1988 that resulted in many, many deaths has been sent home from a Scottish prison to Libya.

The public story is that he was released on compassionate grounds because he is dying of prostate cancer.

Like you, I took this nonsense at face value.

I argued about whether or not his prostate cancer was a good enough reason to free someone this evil.

I took all of this cover story seriously.

Until yesterday, that is.

What changed?

I had my hair cut.

And my Libyan barber gave me the proverbial ear full.

"See if this murderer is still alive three months from now, or even a year," my barber asked.

Here is the real story, according to my scissors-brandishing source.

Libya is on the upswing.

Hell, it is flying high. One of the world's largest suppliers of oil and swimming in construction and new enterprise.

Last month, British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who has remained curiously silent on this release fiasco, was drinking tea with

Muammar al-Gaddafi

Scotland is one of the few countries in Europe to not have benefited from Libya's current successes. France, Germany, Italy, almost everyone else has been cashing in. Put your ear to the stones at Peggy's Cove and Kashing! Kashing! you can hear the registers ringing.

So now, Abdel baset Al-Megrahi, the mass-murderer, is released from a poor Scots jail and greeted in Libya with a hero's welcome.

"He will now be a very, very rich man. He will write books and be treated like royalty," my source assured me, as he held a hand mirror to the nape of my neck.

Soon, haggis will be served at every cafe in Tripoli. Amidst the desert heat, locals will wrap themselves in Scottish woolens.

I avoided my own best rule for news - follow the money.

Prostate cancer - my butt!

What was I thinking?