Michael Kelly: The truth of Megrahi's release must come out

WHY is Kenny MacAskill refusing to accept the invitation of the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee to attend its hearings into the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi? It's so unlike the SNP to turn down an opportunity to strut the world stage.

Yet here is the legislature of the most powerful democracy in the world seeking their views on a matter of international importance and our Minister for Justice and his First Minister hide behind bluster and rhetoric.

Mr MacAskill is still claiming that the Senate is only concerned about BP's role in the freeing of Megrahi. We all believe that BP made no representations to him and that the prospects of oil contracts did not influence him. But we suspect his impartiality in the row. Why else miscall the company BP if he is trying to help the UK's case - which he would by flying to Washington?

What is he so afraid of? Appearing before the Senate is a piece of cake. These are less question and answer sessions and more opportunities for the senators to read out prepared speeches directed at their supporters.

Look how George Galloway ripped them apart when, rather than sit respectfully and absorb their flak he took them on with good old British debating, eating them alive and walking out a hero.

The suspicion grows that Mr MacAskill has something to hide. Certainly falling back on the "compassion" of the Scottish justice and penal system to justify Megrahi's release is a very weak base to defend.

Scotland imprisons more per head of its population, 129, than, say Norway, 59, with whom the SNP love to compare us. Slopping out, overcrowding and lack of resources to educate and rehabilitated prisoners, ready availability of drugs - these have been the hallmarks of Mr MacAskill's compassionate watch.

Worst still, in every Scottish prison there is a large proportion of inmates with severe mental problems that society refuses to recognise and, therefore, treat. Mr MacAskill extended compassion to the one prisoner in Scotland least deserving of compassion.

That would be difficult to defend. But there are two further issues about which Mr MacAskill cannot afford to be cross-examined. The first is an explanation of why he visited Megrahi in Greenock prison. It wasn't surely just to collect a signed photo of this notorious criminal? What was discussed?

In particular, was there a deal done? And did that deal involve sounding out Megrahi as to whether he would trade his freedom for dropping his appeal against conviction? That appeal, if upheld, might have caused the Scottish Judiciary almighty embarrassment. Or it might have generated considerable public outrage by confirming what many Scots still consider a doubtful verdict. Better to sweep it under the carpet which release did.

Secondly, Mr MacAskill would have to allow access to the medical evidence and defend it. He would also have to explain his interpretation of it. Every one of us knows of an individual, who, given only a short while to live, carries on for years. We all know from these personal experiences how uncertain these estimates of longevity are. Mr MacAskill accepted a guess based on the time scale that he needed to justify compassionate release.

He has so far refused to address either of these issues, hiding behind the need to afford, not himself, but Megrahi confidentiality. But, one thing is certain; Megrahi will die and with his passing will die all issues of data protection. Can we have an assurance now from the justice minister that when that day finally arrives, he will publish and explain his take on the medical evidence and explain his private visit to Greenock?

Because it is not at all clear what motivated him to release the convicted murderer of 270 people. He did not succumb to improper commercial lobbying. And everybody in Scotland can assure the Senate that the SNP would never do a favour for a UK government - especially a Labour one.

So why did he do it? Partly to make an "independent" impact on the world of foreign affairs. Never forget that this Scottish Government's central obsession is to break away from the United Kingdom. Anything it can do to embarrass or demean a British government it will take. It will also take every opportunity to extend its influence beyond the legal powers it has.

In freeing Megrahi, Mr MacAskill was exercising powers that had been delegated. But it was a decision that obviously had major foreign policy implications, overlapping more important areas of UK jurisdiction.

A sensible and responsible government would have collaborated with those who did have this broader responsibility - the British Foreign Office - to ensure the least embarrassment for both. Instead Mr McAskill missed that opportunity and instead took a naive, insular, immature decision that has left question marks over both administrations. And in the collateral damages he becomes the only Scot ever to lower his country's reputation in the United States.

The incident does much more than question Mr MacAskill's judgment which was certainly flawed. It raised the spectre of the kind of decision-making in international affairs that Scotland would have to endure if it ever were to get independence.

This is the kind of blinkered, narrow policies we would get from ministers who have no experience of the big world outside clan circles. The SNP have not got individuals with the necessary background, expertise or experience in world affairs that the other main parties - including now the Lib Dems - could recruit from Westminster. Nor has Scotland the Civil Service with the necessary skills.

After independence the SNP would be immediately be faced with negotiating a political and economic place in Europe, with securing foreign energy supplies to fill the gap left by its exclusion of nuclear from the mix, and with seeking to establish some sort of relationship with the USA.

Independence would set Scotland's place in the world back 20 years. Maybe Mr MacAskill is right not to travel to the States. He's got more than enough questions to answer here. •Michael Kelly is a Scottish politician and businessman.