CRIME DOES PAY

Victims' family members and advocates are grieving anew as the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland -- which killed 270 people -- was released Thursday from a British prison. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, sick with advanced prostate cancer, was released on compassionate grounds and sent home to Libya to die.

Just before Christmas in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland, killing the 259 passengers and crew members on their way from London to New York and 11 people on the ground. The United States and Scotland issued indictments against two Libyan intelligence officers for the bombing, but Libya refused to surrender the suspects, leading the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions against the country in 1992.

After years of negotiations and sanctions, Libya agreed to extradite the two suspects, on condition that they be tried in a third country. So a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands, and the suspects were extradited more than 10 years after the Boeing 747 was bombed.Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence official, was convicted in 2001. He was the only person found guilty in the case.

The decision caused a lot of dissatisfaction among the victims families. They find injustice to release the convicted bomber who have been incarcerated for more than 20 years and now he is dying with prostate cancer. some people fears that he may still be capable of wreaking havoc to any nation and so goes the risk of releasing him as a freeman. The premise of his release was on compassionate grounds which is very ironic because these people at the time when they were committing this crime was not aware compassion ever existed.

Cancer has taken its toll on the terrorist. If there is some consolation for the victims' family that is to consider the pain that a cancer victim may have that he had to be release to die with his family. You may consider this as sweet revenge from nature, a karma for being a criminal. We just move around the circle of life where we reap what we sow. We sow terror then we get death.

Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is said to have 3 more months to live and he was sent home to die in his home.

The effects of our doing may not be imminent and may some time tarry but certainly it will happen. It will come in varying degrees depending how one would take it. some can take small headache as so heavy that suffering with is like death while others may just take cancer lightly like unto a headache. One thing is definite, once it is payback time, it will really be as devastating. The degree of pain you gave will be the same degree of pain that you will receive in the future. No one is excused. Even Osama Bin Ladin in all his terrorist splendor will still receive the same toll when his time comes. .