Lockerbie trial that’s just begun is a new, judicial model for fighting terrorism.
After 12 years of US-Libyan diplomatic wrangling there’s a blueprint for trying the two Libyans charged with blowing up Pan Am 103: three Scottish Justices will administer British Law on a Dutch airbase that’s been declared Scottish soil, with an Anglo-American prosecution.
It’s an experiment in dealing with the post-Cold War nightmare – terrorism. But it’s a trial of two men – not of the Libyan government or its chief, Colonel Qaddafi whom the US long charged with sponsoring terrorism.
The residents of Lockerbie opened the trial last week by reminding the world of the horror of 1988 when a rain of fire, metal, and jetfuel poured over their village, leveling homes and killing neighbours; and visible in the flames were the mortal remains of all 259 people aboard the plane.
The long aftermath of the Lockerbie Crash, on this hour.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
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