Kenny MacAskill returns to front-line politics at Westminster
While justice secretary at Holyrood in 2009, he approved the release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds.
Former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has returned to front-line politics after securing a seat at Westminster.
Mr MacAskill, who during his tenure at Holyrood sanctioned the release of the Lockerbie bomber, took East Lothian from Labour with 21,156 votes to Martin Whitfield’s 17,270.
He was thrust into the global spotlight in 2009 when he opted to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.
Megrahi, who had cancer, died in his home country in 2012.
He remains the only person ever convicted for the bombing of Pan-Am flight 103 in December 1998, which killed 270 people.
Mr MacAskill was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as a list MSP representing the Lothians, before winning the constituency seat of Edinburgh East and Musselburgh in 2007 and then Edinburgh Eastern in 2011.
