Outrage over the decision torelease on “compassionate grounds,” Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the convicted bomber of Pan Am flight103 who killed 270, including 189 Americans in 1998 has hit a nerve about howthe worst extremists seemingly outflank justice. As the ailing convictedperpetrator of the second-worst terrorist attack in history against U.S.civilians is sunning himself amid cheers, flowers and hugs in Tripoli, anexamination of the outcomes of other terrorism cases over the last century, bigand small, yields its own pattern of disappointments.
Even before Megrahi’s releaselast week the case presented extreme difficulties for authorities and familiesalike. The trial, held by agreement in the Netherlands, not Scotland, commencedwell over a decade after the attack, and a co-defendant was acquitted. By thetime of his release Megrahi would have served about 12 days imprisonment foreach life he took.
Of the other top fiveterrorist attacks against U.S. citizens besides Pan Am 103, only two resultedin the arrest and conviction of a perpetrator. The April 19, 1995 bombing ofthe Oklahoma City Murrah federal building that killed 168 resulted in theexecution of bomber Timothy McVeigh by lethal injection in 2001. For the otherconviction, one has to go back almost a century to the 1910 bombing of the LosAngeles Times building which killed 21. For the rest of the most deadly attacksperpetrators escaped the bar of justice either by eluding capture--somepermanently, or choosing the method and timing of their own demise.
Terrorist IncidentsDirected Towards Americans by U.S. Deaths
1. 9/11 Attacks, Incendiary Bombing by Aircraft,NY, DC, PA 2975 killed,9/11/ 2001 Al Qaeda
2. U.S. Marine Barracks,Truck Bombing , Beirut, Leb., 241killed (US) 10/23/1983 Hizbollahprecursor
3. Pan Am Fl. 103, Aircraft Bombing, Lockerbie,Scotland, 270 killed (189 US), 12/21/ 1988 Libyan Agent
4. Murrah Fed. Bldg.,Truck Bombing, Oklahoma City, OK, 168 killed 4/19/1995 Anti-gov'textremists
5.Bath MI School Bombings, Bombing, 44 killed, 5/18/1927 Disgruntled taxpayer
6. Wall Street Bombing,Horse cart Bomb, NY, 35 killed, 9/16/1920 Socialists/AnarchistsSuspected
7. Los Angeles TimesBldg., Bombing, Los Angeles, CA, 21killed, 10/01/ 1910, Union militants
The 19 perpetrators of 9/11,the worst terrorist attack against Americans which killed over 2970 people,yielded no trial, but tons of conspiracy theorists. All the direct murderers died in the crashes. The October1983 truck bomb attack, allegedly by a precursor of Hizbollah, that killed 241sleeping servicemen on a contentious, but internationally designatedpeacekeeping mission, never resulted in a criminal trial. Accused mastermindImad Mughniyah was allegedly involved in a string of brazen kidnappings andfatal bombings against American civilians, as well as government and militaryofficials. He was eventually indicted by American authorities on anothercharge. The indictment stemmed fromhis masterminding of the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985 where a U.S.sailor was murdered and dumped from the rear of the aircraft in Beirut. He wasalso indicted in Argentina for bombings against Israeli and Jewish targets inincidents that killed the most Jewish civilians since World War II. Mugniyaheluded capture by the U.S. in separate incidents where the French and Saudisthwarted the attempts. He also skirted death along with his spiritual advisor,when a car bomber allegedly tied to the U.S, killed 62 Lebanese civiliansinstead. His luck finally ran outdecades later when a bomb from an unknown assailant exploded in his car inSyria in February 2008.
The September 1920 bombing ofWall Street was the worst terrorist attack in American history at the time. Thehorse drawn bomb killed over 35 people, but the attack by suspected anarchistswas never solved. The Bath School bombings in May 1927, by an anti-tax schoolboard member, who blamed taxation for his financial distress, claimed 44 otherMichiganders, the majority of whom were grade school children. The bomberAndrew Kehoe died in one of the blasts. A smaller, more recent blast at LaGuardia airport in 1975 remainsunsolved.
This year has seen its ownset of heartbreaks. The Palestinian terrorist who in 1985 ruthlessly killedLeon Klinghoffer, an elderly American wheelchair bound tourist was releasedfrom an Italian prison this April for “good behavior” -seven years short of histhirty-year sentence. Klinghoffer was aboard the hijacked ocean liner, theAchille Lauro, when he was shot in the head and dumped into the sea. The actualmastermind of the attack Abu Abbas was convicted in absentia in Italy, butevaded authorities until his April 2003 capture by U.S. Special Forces. He diedless then a year later of natural causes.
In a related, but stillunsolved domestic terror attack, Alex Odeh, West Coast director of theAmerican-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was murdered by a bomb blast inOrange County, California. Jewish extremists, including one deceased and oneserving a life sentence, along with others perhaps in Israel, were suspectedbut never charged. It is believed Odeh was targeted by terrorists foradvocating support of the Palestinian cause during the course of the AchilleLauro hijacking.
Cases from the racial turmoilof decades ago continue to reverberate today. Two adjudicated cop killers fromthe Black Liberation Army have apparently outflanked the legal system. The BLAis believed responsible for the death of at least 15 police officers in thelate 1960s and early 1970s. Herman Bell, already serving a life sentence in aNew York prison for murdering two police officers in Harlem in May 1971, wasgiven probation this summer in California for the shotgun killing of a SanFrancisco police sergeant in August of that year. FBI Most wanted JoanneChesimard, 61 remains at large in Cuba after armed cohorts sprang her fromprison in 1979. She was convicted of the execution style murder of New JerseyState Trooper Werner Foester. Both are regarded as folk heroes by some on the far left.
Earlier this month,racist Billy Wayne Posey, a prime suspect in a Klan murder conspiracy died ofnatural causes at 73. Posey was allegedly involved in the infamous murders ofthree young civil rights workers, two Jewish and one African-American, nearPhiladelphia, Mississippi in 1964. A grand jury, with a relative of Posey’s onit failed to indict him by one vote. The only person to face state murdercharges, Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005. Mr. Poseyoutlived all of the victims' mothers including Fannie Lee Chaney and CarolynGoodman who passed at 84 and 91, respectively in 2007. The death comes lessthan three weeks after a group of civil rights experts conferred with AttorneyGeneral Eric Holder about civil rights era “cold cases” including this one.
The sometimes-conflictinggoals of the American justice system are deterrence (discouraging crime),retribution (proportionate punishment), incapacitation (removing the dangerousoffender from society), and rehabilitation (reforming attitudes). Thesecornerstones of justice are undermined when homicidal extremists from long agocases kill innocents and evade appropriate punishment. It sends the wrongmessage to victims’ families today and would be terrorists tomorrow.