Yesterday the Bishop of Musselburgh somehow tricked his way into the Scottish Parliament in the guise of Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary. How else to account for the transcendent moral tone of the statement made concerning the release of the convicted bomber of Pan Am Flight 103?

Scotland was, the Right Rev MacAskill implied, a superior place where “we define ourselves by our humanity”, a humanity obliging the Justice Secretary to show compassion to Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, in the form of letting him fly home, the occasion being the supposed proximity of the prisoner’s death.

And nothing else, note. The utterly unrepentant al-Megrahi, according to Mr MacAskill, who had by now switched to high sanctimony, was facing a “sentence imposed by another power ... He is going to die.” The word “soon” was of course implied.

So these are the new “laws and values of Scotland” — if you’re going to snuff it within a reasonably short time (let’s say months, or a year or so) you are thought to have been transferred into the custody of God and you get let out. How could one not agree with that?

Easily. One wonders how widely Mr MacAskill would like to see this form of humanity applied. Let us imagine that Robert Black, the Scottish serial killer of young girls, or Ian Brady, the Scottish-born Moors Murderer, were discovered to be on their last knockings. Like al-Megrahi, they, too, have shown a resilience in their refusal to help the authorities to uncover the full extent of their crimes, and have thus made matters worse for the victims’ families.

But surely they will soon be beyond the capacity to inflict harm, their maker’s finger beckoning to them, so wouldn’t it be best to return them from England to Grangemouth and Glasgow respectively, to die in the bosom of whatever families they can discover there?

I thought not. Of course, some say that al-Megrahi was wrongly convicted and that there has been a miscarriage of justice big enough to compare with the Birmingham and Guildford scandals. The former Labour MP Tam Dalyell has argued the case, substantially basing his assessment upon al-Megrahi’s seeming to be a “civilised, intelligent, caring man”, who — had the judges had a chance to get to know him — would have been acquitted, or had his case found “not proven”.

But then one recalls that Mr Dalyell has not yet apologised for accusing the security services of having killed Hilda Murrell in Shrewsbury in 1984, when her murderer later turned out to be a local delinquent.

More to the point Mr MacAskill himself does not believe al-Megrahi to be anything but guilty after his conviction, the loss of his first appeal and the likely dismissal of his second appeal. So the decision was to return an impenitent man, guilty of mass murder, back to the comfort of his home abroad, on the sole basis that the Almighty might shortly be claiming him.

But the Almighty has been too slow. Al-Megrahi has survived long enough to be accorded a hero’s welcome, to let it be known that he is writing a book detailing his innocence and to shelter under the emotional rainbow provided by his weeping but smiling relatives.

Unsurprisingly some of the Pan Am 103 relatives contrast this with the unshriven nature of their own loved ones’ deaths, with the sudden and deliberate (although arbitrary) termination of their 270 existences.

Unsurprisingly too, the release and the events following it, have deeply upset people in the United States. President Obama is unhappy, and so is Hillary Clinton.

Famously the Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, has written to Mr MacAskill to describe his personal view that the decision was a “mockery of justice”.

And this is what they get back. The former Labour First Minister, Henry McLeish (who has co-written two books with Mr MacAskill on the subject of the Scottish diaspora), said that Mr Mueller’s intervention was “the equivalent of the Metropolitan Police chief writing to Barack Obama to complain about a decision”, in other words an act of lèse-majesté. The matter was “none of his [Mr Mueller’s] business”.

In Scottish phone-ins highly eloquent middle-class Scots could be discovered advocating the need to “stand up to these arrogant Americans” or complaining about “the audacity of the Americans, given Guantánamo Bay”.

Here is what Mr McLeish and those who are so contemptuous of American anger need to remember.

One: Scotland wasn’t the target of al-Megrahi’s bomb — Americans were. Had the bomb gone off two minutes earlier then the plane would have fallen in England; ten minutes later, in international waters. Scottish jurisdiction was a complete accident following a deliberate atrocity.

Two: of the 270 dead, 52 were British citizens but 180 were from the US. It was an American plane.

Three: US agencies and personnel such as Mr Mueller were fully involved in the investigation.

The idea, therefore, that the decison was no business of Mr Mueller’s is far more stupid and arrogant than anything the Americans have so far done or said concerning Lockerbie.

It is true, as Mr MacAskill has said, that he would have been criticised whatever he had decided. It could also be true that he is entirely motivated by a mistaken notion of compassion.

But another thought nags, given that he could have gone the other way and that it was perfectly within his gift to keep al-Megrahi in Scotland. The thought is that there is a section of opinion that is, perversely, rather keener on being friends with the likes of Colonel Gaddafi, than it is on nurturing our relations with our main and most important ally.

After all we do want to show the Americans how independent we are, and though we secretly know that Gaddafi’s Libya is like a bad Michael Jackson running a country-sized Neverland with added (but not simulated) torture, wouldn’t it be good to try to edge him out of the mad dog category and into the eccentric uncle one?

Well, it may be necessary to grit your teeth, don the Marigolds and shake the hand of the Libyan dictator. But not at the expense of friendship with the United States, as one lives in hope that our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will soon find himself able to remind us.

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