There are few people in Scotland who understand crime, criminality and the meaning of justice as well as Donald Findlay QC. Surrendering our principles when we deal with the worst forms of crime is the wrong moral course to adopt, he argues.

The death of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of US Navy Seals may have been the predictable end of the journey he had embarked upon. It was inevitable that the Americans would hunt down the inspiration behind 9/11and that he would not survive the encounter.
In announcing the demise of the man who had eluded and outwitted the US for so long, President Obama proclaimed that justice had been done. But was he right?

It now seems clear that Bin Laden was in his bed when the Seals forced their way in. He was unarmed. He did not have a human shield. He had no possible escape route. He was confronted by one of the most highly trained military units in the World. He posed no threat.

He was killed.

It is inconceivable that he could not have been taken alive. Are we seriously to believe that the pride of US military might could not have captured an unarmed man? It seems to me that the Seals adopted the attitude of their former Commander in Chief, George W Bush, who wanted his number one target “Dead or Alive”. No one thought he was laying too much emphasis on the ‘alive’ bit.
I suggest that the stark reality is that the Americans did not want to put him on trial and had no intention of so doing.

And if we were watching justice being done, what does one make of those Americans who were out on the streets celebrating? Personally, I found this quite nauseating. Whatever he had become, he was a human being and no one will ever convince me that the death of any man is a cause for celebration.

The background to all of this is troubling.

I have never seen any evidence sufficient to convince me that there is a global terrorist network called Al Qaeda, and certainly not one masterminded by Osama Bin laden, whether from a cave in Afghanistan or a compound in Pakistan. Al Qaeda is surely an idea, an ideal, albeit a perverted one. Bin Laden may well have inspired the idea and funded it, but the notion that he was its controlling mastermind runs counter to the known facts.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that in the UK we live under the ever present cloud of terrorist threat and have endured the horrific consequences of terrorist action. Is there a legitimate position which dictates that if you indulge in such activities you run the risk of putting yourself out with the normal application of the rule of law? Simply stated, is there merit in the old saying, ‘If you hunt with the craws, you may expect to be shot?’

Frankly such a notion alarms me.

It seems clear that some at least of the information which the Americans acquired and which led them to Bin laden, was obtained by what is euphemistically termed, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. I prefer the more realistic description, torture. If you tie a man to a board and make him think that he is drowning, how can you say this is anything other than torture? I reject the argument that the end ever justifies the means.

If a terrorist suspect (Bin Laden had been convicted by no Court) indulges in a shoot out with the forces of law and order, he chooses his own fate. But if he can be arrested, surely the law demands that he is arrested. Otherwise, do we not run the risk of lowering ourselves to the level of those we condemn?

And if we regard arrest as an optional extra, why not go the whole hog and publicly sanction assassination, in Pakistan, Libya or elsewhere?

Surely the way to defeat terrorists is to demonstrate that our values are superior to theirs. That the bomb will never defeat law and order and that he who would injure us will feel the full power of the rule of law. Arrest, a trial with a well presented prosecution case and a fully prepared and argued defence case followed by a conviction and sentence. I have always understood THIS to be justice.
Such justice is something President Obama would be entitled to brag about.