UK Denies Link between Release of Bulgaria-Jailed Michael Shields, Lockerbie

Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi (C) flew out of Britain on a Libyan government jet August 20 after being freed from jail on health grounds by the regional government in Scotland. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Liverpool Labour Party leader Joe Anderson, the man who led the campaign in support of Bulgaria-jailed Michael Shields, has vehemently denied any links between his release and what many have called the Lockerbie fiasco.

"I think you are clutching at straws here by using the Al-Megrahi case," Joe Anderson said in an exclusive interview for Sofia News Agency.

"The fact is he was released by the Scottish Parliament and not the UK Government, he was released on compassionate grounds because he had terminal cancer and had months to live. Michael Shields was released because the UK Government found him to be morally and technically innocent and there was no way to have a retrial so he was granted a pardon. These are two completely different issues."

According to Joe Anderson the Parliament in Scotland makes its own decisions.

"It is a different political party called the SNP. They have made it perfectly clear that they have done no deal with the UK Government and quite frankly anyone who knows anything about the politics in the UK knows that the SNP despise the UK Government and would do nothing to assist them whatsoever."

Asked about the way the case has been handled by the United Kingdom, Joe Anderson said Michael Shields was equally failed by his own country in that "they were concerned about prisoner transfer protocols being seen to be broken if they released Michael Shields" instead of the evidence and justice.

"Clearly any system that leaves an innocent man jailed has failed and so the UK legal system failed as did the Bulgarian system. In the UK this case would never have got to trial because it was purely based on identification evidence."

FULL text of the interview READ HERE

 

 

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