Rebuilding US-Libyan Relations Twenty Years after Lockerbie

This is the title of a lengthy article in the Policy Watch series on the website of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It can be read here. In the course of the article, it is said:

'The Lockerbie attack was a crisis in Libya's relations with the United States and the rest of the world. To avoid the brunt of responsibility, Colonel Qadhafi eventually blamed rogue intelligence agents, and one, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, was found guilty by a special Scottish court. Despite repeated attempts to reopen his case and reports that he is dying of cancer, al-Megrahi is still in a Scottish prison. Libya did agree to pay financial compensation to the victims' families, a slow process that eventually led to payouts last week from a fund that includes monies from U.S. corporations wanting to do business in the north African state.'

It is disappointing, but instructive, that a supposedly reputable organisation could publish such a farrago of inaccuracy. Gaddafi has never admitted that Libyan "rogue intelligence agents" were responsible for Lockerbie. The individuals eventually handed over for trial were identified not by Gaddafi but by the US and UK investigators. And the delay in handing them over, at least from January 1994, was attributable wholly to the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States. It might also have been thought worth mentioning that the most recent attempt to reopen Megrahi's case has been successful and that an appeal is currently wending its way -- painfully slowly -- through the Scottish criminal justice system.