The furore surrounding the release of convicted terrorist Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds after serving just seven of a 27 year sentence for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has split opinion in the UK and around the world.

Unionists have accused the Scottish Government of playing with the emotions of the victims' relatives. Claiming his release was nothing but a cheap PR stunt to demonstrate that Scotland is not afraid to act independently from the UK when it comes to international matters.

Certainly their decision to release the man convicted of 270 counts murder has put Scotland, the Scottish government and our justice system centre stage. At first sight as Saltires flew at Al Megrahi’s homecoming this looked like a serious diplomatic blunder that could cause long term damage to Scotland's standing in the world.

However, the prospect of an anti Scottish campaign resulting in thousands of cancelled trips and trade boycotts from outraged Americans appears to be exaggerated. Visit Scotland, who are rightly concerned, US tourists are worth £360 million to our economy every year, reports no significant cancellation in light of this decision, so far

Whether this changes over the longer term remains to be seen, what is clear though is that conspiracy theories will continue to haunt every aspect of this case and will no doubt do so long after Megrahi’s death.

His supporters, and there are many in the US as well, claim he was simply a stool pidgeon put forward by Libya as a way of bringing them back into the international fold.

The real perpetrators many claim were Iran eager to avenge the shooting down by the US Navy of one of their airliners with the loss of 200 + lives, an eye for an eye.

Why did Mr McAskill visit Al Megrahi in prison when he didn’t need to? Was there a trade off, drop your appeal and you can go home. And not forgetting the multi billion dollar oil contracts British companies are currently hoovering up in Libya.

Certainly there remains a lot of unanswered questions over this whole sorry episode.

Unfortunately they are likely to remain unanswered. Calls for a public enquiry should be ignored at all costs, it would do nothing but line even more lawyers' pockets.

A public enquiry would not have the power to summon even a fraction of the witnesses that would be needed to get anywhere near the whole truth, so why bother with another expensive charade.

Kenny McAskill has made a decision that has tried to draw a line under what is the worst terrorist atrocity in UK history.

And while he has his critics the decision, as he says was his and his alone.

America complains that since most of the victims were US citizens they should have been consulted.

Please, if the opposite was the case and 180 of the victims were Scottish and the plane exploded over US jurisdiction do you really think the US justice department would pay a blind bit of notice to what the families of the Scottish victims thought of their decision?

History will show that Mr McAskill made the right decision for the right reasons. Keeping a dying man chained in jail serves no purpose. A few hundred neo-con Americans may boycott Scotland in disgust, but frankly post Guantanamo Bay it is rich for Americans to lecture anyone about justice and compassion.

And those Americans not members of the hang em high brigade, those able to see the difference between justice and revenge will not let this decision stop them visiting the land of so many of their forefathers. They will conclude, like any rational person, that just because Megrahi showed no compassion for his victims, it shouldn't mean we are all reduced to his level of callousness.

In fact in the long run, far from damaging Scotland’s reputation this decision will enhance it. Those looking objectively at this case, whether they believe the decision is right or wrong, will appreciate it stays true to the ethos of one of the oldest legal systems on the planet and was made by a Minister not afraid to face up to heavy handed international pressure for what he believes in.