Thirteen years after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, a decision has been rendered. Three Scottish judges in a court in the Netherlands sentenced Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to life imprisonment for the bombing. His codefendant, Mr. Lamen Khalifa Fahimah, was acquitted. The verdict is unlikely to satisfy many. The long, convoluted process involved in bringing the two men to trial has made plain how difficult it is to fight state-sponsored terror.

The trial was the result of years of intense negotiations, backed by United Nations sanctions. Libya's leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, decided that pariah status had cost his country too much. He was willing to hand over the two men if certain conditions were met, the most important of which was that the trial would be a criminal, not a political proceeding. In other words, the two men would be on trial, not the Libyan government.

That precondition guaranteed that the verdict would be unsatisfactory and also ensured that the verdict would not end the case. After all, no low-ranking intelligence official would decide to commit such an act on his own. Clearly, the individuals who plotted and ordered the attack are going unpunished.