[The following are excerpts from a report published (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Sunday Times:]
Libya’s new government will refuse to hand over the suspected killer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the Lockerbie bomber if Britain seeks their extradition, senior officials warned this weekend.
Members of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said they would block any request for a British trial of the man suspected of shooting Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.
They would also reject any attempt to return Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, to prison in Scotland.
Hassan al-Sagheer, a member of the NTC and a legal expert, said: “Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle.” (...)
[The comments will] dismay relatives of the Lockerbie victims and politicians in Britain and America who have called for Megrahi to be sent back to jail. David Cameron has said he should not have been released two years ago when it was thought he would die from prostate cancer within months. (...)
Members of the NTC said they were highly unlikely to change the position.
“According to our laws, no one can be handed over unless there are previous agreements or special agreements to do so,” said Fawzi al-Ali, another NTC member.
A senior judge who took part in the early stages of the uprising that toppled Gadaffi last week emphasised another reason why Megrahi would not be sent to Britain or — as some US politicians have demanded — America.
The bomber is a member of one of the largest tribes that sided with Gadaffi during the revolt. “Any move to hand him back would cause internal conflict at a time when we are trying to bridge differences,” the judge said.
[Here is UK Foreign Secretary William Hague's response, as reported on The Telegraph website:]
Speaking in a round of broadcast interviews this morning, Mr Hague said: "This is an ongoing police investigation so it is quite difficult for me to comment.
"I would say that when chairman (Mustafa Abdel) Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue.
"It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. but we look to them to cooperate fully.
"So I would not take what has been written in the press today as the last word."
[And here is the Libyan National Transitional Council's rejoinder, as reported by The Press Association news agency:]
On Sunday morning, Foreign Secretary William Hague struck an optimistic note on the case, saying National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil had pledged to "co-operate fully".
"I would say that when chairman Jalil...was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue," Mr Hague said in a round of broadcast interviews. It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. But we look to them to co-operate fully."
Mr Hague played down comments by junior NTC members that extraditions would be blocked, insisting they were not the "last word".
However, on Sunday evening new justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi became the most senior figure so far to rule out handing individuals over.
"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," he told reporters in Tripoli. "Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again ... We do not hand over Libyan citizens. (Muammar) Gaddafi does."
[It should be noted that Libya did not extradite Megrahi and Fhimah for trial at Zeist, for exactly the reason set out above -- Libyan law (like that of many other countries) does not permit the extradition of its citizens for trial abroad. Megrahi and Fhimah voluntarily surrendered for trial, a decision that Megrahi at least must now bitterly regret.]
what new libyan govt? the old libyan govt is still the legitimate libyan govt..who says theres any new one? not the libyan people!
ReplyDeleteExtract from Tam Dalyell's 1997 speech in Parliament:
ReplyDeleteBecause of my interest in Lockerbie, I became extremely concerned - it should be the concern of the Crown Office, too - about the brutal and terrible murder in this city of Woman Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher. With the agreement of Queenie Fletcher, her mother, I raised with the Home Office the three remarkable programmes that were made by Fulcrum, and their producer, Richard Bellfield, called Murder in St James's. Television speculation is one thing, but this was rather more than that, because on film was George Stiles, the senior ballistics officer of the British Army, who said that, as a ballistics expert, he believed that the WPC could not have been killed from the second floor of the Libyan embassy, as was suggested.
Also on film was my friend, Hugh Thomas, who talked about the angles at which bullets could enter bodies, and the position of those bodies. Hugh Thomas was, for years, the consultant surgeon of the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast, and I suspect that he knows more about bullets entering bodies than anybody else in Britain. Above that was Professor Bernard Knight, who, on and off, has been the Home Office pathologist for 25 years. He was considered a distinguished enough pathologist to be put in charge of Cromwell street. When Bernard Knight gives evidence on film that the official explanation could not be, it is time for an investigation.
Part 2 of Channel 4's Dispatches documentary entitled Murder In St James's can be viewed here.
ReplyDeleteIn the film, reporter Joe Layburn interviewed ballistics expert Lt-Col George Styles who stated that a high velocity bullet from a Sterling submachine gun fired from the Libyan Embassy would have passed straight through WPC Yvonne Fletcher's body at an angle of 15°. Consultant surgeon Hugh Thomas rebutted evidence given by Ian West, the pathologist at the inquest, that the 60° angle of entry of the bullet could be explained by Fletcher's turning to the right or left. The extent of her internal injuries meant that a less powerful weapon - fired at an acute angle - must have been used.
British intelligence agents Colin Wallace and Robin Robison alleged that MI5 had been given a clear warned beforehand by the CIA that there was going to be some shooting at the demonstration outside the Libyan embassy.
The film went on to allege that the anti-Gaddafi organisation Al Burkan, which was funded by the Reagan White House (Lt-Col Oliver North, Vince Cannistraro and Howard Teicher), had been planning deliberately to kill a police officer at the demonstration. Al Burkan obtained the murder weapon from the Hein terrorist group (Hilmar Hein, Helmut Naegler and Manfred Meyer) in West Berlin, and used it to kill Fletcher with a single shot from the sixth floor penthouse at 3 St James's Square - the building adjacent to the embassy.
According to the film, the head of Al Burkan, Ragab Zatout, planned to overthrow Gaddafi and seize control of Libya's oil wealth after the severing of diplomatic relations, but his coup attempt on 8 May 1984 was thwarted by the Libyan army.
Yvonne Fletcher's murder would later become a major factor in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to allow US President Ronald Reagan to launch the USAF bombing raid on Libya in 1986 from American bases in Britain.
BBC Radio 4 News agreeing with this blog, by reporting that the NTC will not hand over Megrahi to any foreign country.
ReplyDeleteThe UK should not put this near the top of any items to be discussed with the new Libyan regime, when it is formed. Oil contracts tenure (and now rebuilding contracts) are why we are over there bombing stuff, and why Megrahi is back home too. We shouldn't let our business objectives slip within sight of success, lest some other countries (non-interventionist like Germany) jump in and take the lucrative contracts. We need to keep the Germans, Chinese and Russians (and the corrupt Switzerland) out of Libya.
WPC Yvonne Fletcher - A miscarriage of justice 27 years in the making
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Dispatches program holds up to much scrutiny. The idea that the CIA would >need to<, let alone >would< arrange for the murder of a British police officer in order to use the UK to bomb Libya is just daft.
ReplyDeletehttp://goo.gl/6SwZt
Not daft at all, theambler!
ReplyDeleteIn Parliament, Home Office Minister David Maclean completely ignored the main allegation in the Dispatches film: that the anti-Gaddafi organisation "Al Burkan", which was funded by the Reagan White House (Lt-Col Oliver North, Vince Cannistraro and Howard Teicher), had been planning deliberately to kill a police officer at the demonstration. "Al Burkan" obtained the murder weapon from the Hein terrorist group (Hilmar Hein, Helmut Naegler and Manfred Meyer) in West Berlin, and used it to kill Fletcher with a single shot from the sixth floor penthouse at 3 St James's Square - the building adjacent to the embassy. The film also alleged that the head of "Al Burkan", Ragab Zatout, planned to overthrow Gaddafi and seize control of Libya's oil wealth after the severing of diplomatic relations with Britain, but his coup attempt on 8 May 1984 was thwarted by the Libyan army.
The coup attempt against Gaddafi - three weeks after Yvonne Fletcher's murder - that's a fact!
In the above link, Conservative Minister David Maclean was speaking on 8 May 1996. Tam Dalyell returned to the charge on 24 June 1997, when Tony Blair was Prime Minister:
ReplyDeleteMr Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): On Africa, does the Prime Minister recall that the one subject about which President Mandela wrote a personal letter to the previous Prime Minister was his unease about Libyan sanctions? The unease felt about Lockerbie has been outlined in 11 Adjournment debates. Will the Prime Minister also reflect on the Channel 4 programmes that cast grave doubt on whether the Libyans were responsible for the brutal and wicked murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher? Before dismissing them merely as television speculation, will he take into account the fact that to do so he would have to suppose that George Styles, the senior ballistics officer of the British Army, does not know much about ballistics, that Hugh Thomas, who was the senior consultant at the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast, does not know much about the angles at which bullets enter bodies, and that Bernard Knight, as the distinguished Home Office pathologist in charge of the Cromwell Street investigation, does not know about pathology? Will he take this matter seriously?
The Prime Minister: As I said to my hon. Friend last week, the Libyan sanctions will remain until Libya complies with the United Nations Security Council resolutions. The Channel 4 programme was a follow-up to the original programme that was made some time last year [10 April 1996]. The continuing investigation into the murder of WPC Fletcher is a matter for the police, and anyone who has new evidence relating to the crime should pass it to them. The original extensive investigation by the Metropolitan police forensic science laboratory and the pathologist Dr Ian West concluded that she was killed by a bullet fired from the Libyan People's Bureau. Every piece of new evidence has been reviewed, but my advice is that the view prevails that she was killed by a bullet from the Libyan People's Bureau.
The police are reviewing the contents of the programme broadcast on 5 June [1997] and they expect to have completed their analysis by the end of September. I do not hold out to my hon. Friend any prospect of change in that respect; I merely say that, whenever new evidence is presented or claims are made, they are investigated. However, the best advice that we have at the moment remains the original advice.
theambler,
ReplyDeleteIncredulity alone is not a reason to dismiss foul play by the CIA.
The CIA have previous form
The Facebook group 'Who Killed Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher?' has just been created.
ReplyDeleteDo you want to join?
For a truly magnificent performance by Sir Teddy Taylor exonerating Libya from both WPC Fletcher’s murder in 1984 and the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, please select this clip from the archived 24 February 2004 edition of BBC Radio 4′s Today Programme: "0832hrs - With Libya claiming no part in the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, we spoke to the film director, Michael Winner, who founded the Police Memorial Trust."
ReplyDelete