Scotland minister will not explain himself in Washington
Daniel and Susan Cohen with photo of daughter Theodora of Syracuse University.
SYRACUSE -- The phone rings in Cape May Courthouse, New Jersey. A woman answers as she often does expecting the questions to begin about the latest news involving Pan Am 103. These calls have come now for 22 years. They would be intrusive to some, but Susan and Daniel Cohen have always preferred to share their opinions, their grief and their insight so the story remains alive. They feel the greater mistake would be to allow the memory of their daughter Theodora to fade without a continued pursuit of justice.
Theodora would have turned 42 this September. If she had been allowed to pursue her dreams she likely would have made it to Broadway or Hollywood by now. She wanted to be an actress. The acts of Abdel Basett Ali Al-Megrahi kept her from reaching her potential. He blew up her flight home from a semester abroad just three days before Christmas in 1988.
It took years to catch and convict Al Megrahi. Last summer he was released from prison as a dying man. The Scottish government let him go on compassionate grounds. All he had to do was drop his right to appeal the conviction. Now eleven months later NY and NJ Senators are pushing to investigate Megrahi's release because he suddenly has ten years to live. There is also information that BP may have encouraged the Scottish government to give Libya what it wanted so the oil giant could dig for oil off the Libyan coast.
The Scottish government is standing by it's decision even though the British Prime Minister calls the release decision wrong. Justice minister Kenny McKaskill has rejected a request to testify at a hearing in Washington. The Scottish position does not shock Susan Cohen. From her New Jersey home she told me tonight, "I'm not at all surprised. It was a horrible thing done by the Scots and the English. They're not going to be subjected to questioning about it. They want it to go away to continue their comfortable business relationship with Qadaffi."
Cohen appreciates the effort by the U.S. Senators. She appreciates President Obama, who happens to be the fifth American President to deal with the fall out of Pan Am 103, denouncing the release of Megrahi. But, she knows full well Megrahi is not going back to prison. Too much time has passed and too much oil is on the line. Business interests rule the day.
There is also the small group of families of victims overseas who are not so sure Al Megrahi was the guy who planted the bomb in the cargo hold of the plane. Cohen and most American families are certain he did. They're bigger question is who else approved the mission. Most are left with little doubt that the order went up the line to Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi.
Daniel Cohen's health is not great after suffering a stroke last year. Susan says she is now 72 years old and is starting to realize they will likely face their own mortality without their daughter Theodora getting the justice she and the others deserve. For now she keeps taking the calls when the phone rings. Nothing on the other end can be worse then the calls she took in December of 1988.
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