Wednesday 18 May 2011

Moussa Koussa plotting to topple Gaddafi

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the London Evening Standard. It reads in part:]

Libyan defector Moussa Koussa is secretly working with the Allied campaign to topple Colonel Gaddafi, triggering fears he may escape justice in Britain.

The Standard understands that Mr Koussa, Gaddafi's former intelligence chief, is still in Qatar after being allowed to leave Britain last month following interviews with police over the Lockerbie bombing. The former foreign minister fled to the UK on March 30.

He was allowed to fly to Qatar in mid-April for a summit on Libya despite protests by MPs and families of victims of the 1988 terror atrocity in which 270 people were killed.

Conservative MP Robert Halfon said: "I very strongly hope that he does come back to the UK in order to face full justice from the domestic or international courts if he is charged with war crimes or any alleged offence related to Lockerbie."

He condemned the decision to allow Mr Koussa to leave, saying Britain should not be used as a "transit lounge". (...)

The dictator's former right-hand man is understood to be encouraging other senior figures to defect and meeting rebel leaders. (...)

Shukri Ghanem, the Libyan oil minister and head of the National Oil Co, defected and fled to Tunisia from the wartorn country this week as Nato stepped up its bombing campaign.

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