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Scotland's compassionate release of the dying terrorist bomber who killed 270 people in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was not warranted. It is good that the Scottish Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, believes in compassion and mercy, but it is wrong to let those elements trump the larger interests of justice.

There is no perfect penalty in the face of such an atrocity. Simple retribution is the easiest to apply, and to call justice; but Scotland, like most of the Western world, has rightly given up on capital punishment. In the absence of an eye for an eye, no penalty can ever truly feel adequate to express society's revulsion and horror when 270 people, including 11 in their homes in Lockerbie, are murdered in cold blood.

A life sentence is the strongest penalty available. It says that, within the humane parameters in which Western justice operates, everything that could possibly be done has been done to demonstrate the value placed on human life, the rule of law and the protection of the social fabric.

Justice in this case required a resolve to carry out the original penalty – a minimum of 27 years – which after all implied that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, then roughly 50, might spend the rest of his life in a Scottish jail. Justice also required keeping faith with the promises made to the United States. One hundred and eighty-nine of the victims were American. The U.S. believes it had a deal with Scotland that the prisoner would spend his sentence in custody in Scotland.

And here is the strange thing about Mr. MacAskill's decision to release Mr. Al-Megrahi. Mr. MacAskill rejected Libya's request to transfer the prisoner to a jail in Libya, because of the deal with the U.S. But the Justice Secretary then freed Mr. Al-Megrahi completely, under the terms of Scottish law, which allows for release when doctors believe that a prisoner has less than three months to live. It seems then that, on a kind of technicality, the terrorist has been given more freedom than mercy required. It feels like compassion-plus.

“The perpetration of an atrocity and outrage cannot and should not be a basis for losing sight of who we are, the values we seek to uphold, and the faith and beliefs by which we seek to live,” Mr. MacAskill said. Fine words, but in the circumstances, they seem out of place.