I find the discussion here more interesting than the events in Scotland and Libya which have inspired them. There is a much higher level of cynicism on the East side of the pond. The readiness to believe in a fall guy meshes surrealistically with the ready internment of the convicted man in the first place.

As to the 'charming' recitation of Portia from Merchant of Venice, the words were put in the mouth of a gentile as part of a set-up to turn the tables on Shylock over a ludicrous rider on a loan agreement and so ruin him. I prefer his honest and expressive soliloquy to Portia's bland blather:

"Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge! If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

In this case, I would find it reasonable to substitute 'bombing victim' for 'Jew'. I'm not aware that anyone on Pan Am Flight 103 had done anything to incite revenge.