Well, that’s a shame. Katy Kay:

It is very easy to sympathize with the relatives of those who died in the attack on Pan Am Flight 103. It’s clear why they feel so outraged that the only man imprisoned for the deaths of their loved ones is now free in Libya, having returned effectively to a hero’s welcome. The pictures of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi being cheered off the plane in Tripoli tonight are particularly galling.
What’s politically and culturally less explicable is the gulf in reaction over his release between the U.S. and Britain, even in Lockerbie itself. BBC correspondents who’ve spent the day in the town (which will forever be defined as the sight of the largest mass murder on British soil) report that most people there agree with the Scottish Justice Minister’s decision to release al-Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal cancer, on compassionate grounds. And even the relatives of those Brits who died supported his release.
The overwhelming majority of his 270 victims were American, but 11 people, two entire families in fact, did die on the ground in Scotland, and one might expect, in Lockerbie if nowhere else, outrage similar to that expressed by American relatives. But not so. Perhaps it’s because Brits, with their experience in Northern Ireland, are, more inured to terrorism, whereas, before Lockerbie, Americans had never really been exposed to this kind of attack, and so it became a watershed event that shattered America’s sense of invincibility. Perhaps it’s that more in Britain question al-Megrahi’s guilt to start with. Or is it just a more confident American sense of wrong and right?
It’s not entirely clear to me why the outrage gap is so pronounced on al-Megrahi’s release, but it definitely is, and I don’t think it’s just a question of numbers. The people of Lockerbie seem to support Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, in his view that the West’s identity rests on mercy as well as justice, and that even in the case of a mass murderer that value still applies. As one of the residents of Lockerbie told my colleague, “We just don’t see these things in black and white.”