Gaddafi expresses support for neutral venue trial

[On this date in 1998 Dr Jim Swire and I had a meeting in Tripoli with Colonel Gaddafi. What follows is the text of a press release issued following our trip to Libya:]

A meeting to discuss issues arising out of the Lockerbie bombing was held in the premises of the Libyan Foreign Office in Tripoli on the evening of Saturday 18 April 1998.  Present were Mr Abdul Ati Obeidi, Under-Secretary of the Libyan foreign Office; Mr Mohammed Belqassem Zuwiy [Zwai], Secretary of Justice of Libya; Mr Abuzaid Omar Dorda, Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations; Dr Ibrahim Legwell, head of the defence team representing the two Libyan citizens suspected of the bombing; Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the British relatives group UK Families-Flight 103; and Professor Robert Black QC, Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and currently a visiting professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

At the meeting discussion focused upon the plan which had been formulated in January 1994 by Professor Black for the establishment of a court to try the suspects which would:

* operate under the criminal law and procedure of Scotland

* have in place of a jury an international panel of judges presided over by a senior Scottish judge

* sit not in Scotland but in a neutral country such as The Netherlands.

Among the issues discussed were possible methods of appointment of  the international panel of judges, and possible arrangements for the transfer of the suspects from Libya for trial and for ensuring their safety and security pending and during the trial.

Dr Legwell confirmed, as he had previously done in January 1994, that his clients agreed to stand trial before such a court if it were established.  The representatives of the Libyan Government stated, as they had done in 1994 and on numerous occasions since then, that they would welcome the setting up of such a court and that if it were instituted they would permit their two citizens to stand trial before it and would co-operate in facilitating arrangements for that purpose.

Dr Swire and Professor Black undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the Government of the United Kingdom to join Libya in accepting this proposal.

On Sunday 19 April 1998, Professor Black met the South African ambassador to Libya and Tunisia, His Excellency Ebrahim M Saley, and discussed with him current developments regarding the Lockerbie bombing.  He also took the opportunity to inform the ambassador of how much President Mandela's comments on the Lockerbie affair at the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October 1997 in Edinburgh had been appreciated.

On Monday 20 April, Dr Swire and Professor Black had a meeting a lasting some 40 minutes with the Leader of the Revolution, Muammar al-Qaddafi.  Also present were the Libyan Foreign Secretary, Mr Omar al-Montasser, and Mr Dorda.  The Leader was informed of the substance of the discussions held on Saturday 18 April, and expressed his full support for the conclusions reached.

Libyan acceptance of neutral venue trial reaffirmed

[What follows is an item headed Breaking of deadlock in Libya? posted on Safia Aoude’s The Pan Am 103 Crash Website and based largely on a report published by the Libyan Jana news agency on this date in 1998:]

Jim Swire held talks in Libya on Saturday with the justice minister about the trial for two suspects in the attack, Libya's official news agency reported on the 19th April. [Dr] Swire, and victims' legal adviser Robert Black met Justice Minister Mohammed Belgasim al-Zuwiy [more often anglicised as Zwai] after arriving in Tripoli.

They discussed suggestions by Swire and Black “concerning reaching ... a fair and just trial of the two suspects in a neutral country,” Libya's official news agency, JANA, reported. Swire and Black drove 215 miles from Tunisia to the Libyan capital Saturday, Swire's spokesman, David Ben-Ariyeh [Ben-Aryeah], said in London. Swire told Ben-Ariyeh he was grateful for the “efficient and warm welcome” they received.

Black and Swire held talks in Tripoli this week with [the suspects’ lawyer Ibrahim] Legwell and Libyan foreign affairs and justice officials. They also met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a bid to gain support for a trial plan formulated by Black. The most important meeting was held with the Libyan lawyer for Fhima and Megrahi in Tripoli, Dr Ibrahim Legwell.

Ibrahim Legwell said he told Scottish lawyer Robert Black and Jim Swire, that his two Libyan clients were ready to stand trial under Scottish law in a neutral country.

“We agreed on several basic points and details,” Legwell told Reuters in a telephone interview from the Libyan capital Tripoli. “I confirmed to them, as I have done previously, that my clients would stand for trial before such a court, which will be set not in Scotland nor the United States, but in a neutral country,” he added. “We also agreed that it would be established with an international panel of judges to be agreed upon and presided over by a senior Scottish judge. The court would operate under the criminal law and procedures of Scotland,” he added as well.

“We also are very concerned about how to ensure the safety, the security and the rights for our clients pending, during and after the trial,” he said.

Legwell said Libya's Justice Minister Mohamed Belgacem Zwai, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, and Libya's representative at the UN, Abouzid Omar Dourda [Dorda], attended part of his meetings with Black and Swire when these issues were discussed.

Zwai said he expected a settlement of the dispute over where to hold the trial. “We expect we will reach a solution that satisfies all parties before the World Court issues its decision,” he told reporters in Cairo late Monday. Black and Swire also met Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister Omar Mustafa al-Montasser in Libya and then Gaddafi Monday at the end of their visit. The Libyan revolutionary leader had in the past said he would support whatever the suspects' lawyers accepted.

Black and Swire left Tripoli Monday for Cairo, where they were to submit their proposal and results of their talks in Tripoli to Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) chief, Salim Ahmed Salim, Legwell said. Zwai met Abdel-Meguid Tuesday, officials in Cairo said. Black and Swire also undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the British government to join Libya in accepting the proposal, he added.

Legwell said the plan was that if Black's proposal was accepted by Britain, regional groupings such as the Arab League, the OAU and the European Union would submit to the Security Council a text approving the plan ahead of suspending the sanctions.

Jim Swire arrived in Cairo on the eve of the 21st April, and he told Reuters by phone, that Libya had agreed to surrender the two suspects to the Netherlands for trial. “I think the importance probably of what we've done is they (the Libyans) have renewed that undertaking and they have reinforced it,” he said. “This (proposal) was given the blessing of the leader subsequently,” Swire said of his 40-minute meeting with Gaddafi.

“The problem of course is, will the west set up the court that is required? I don't know what else the Libyan government can do to prove that they mean it when they say they would come.”

A historian's view on Musa Kusa

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Michael Burleigh that appeared on the Mail Online website on this date in 2011:]

A dapper man, with thick grey hair, an icy manner and a fondness for Italian handmade suits, he has been dubbed the Envoy of Death and the Fingernail-Puller-in-Chief. Whatever his moniker, the truth is that, as the main apologist for the Gaddafi regime, he has been up to his eyeballs in murder and torture for years.

Musa Kusa has a sociology degree from Michigan State University where – surprise, surprise – his thesis was a potted biography of Gaddafi. Being well-born to a prominent Tripoli family, he managed to secure an interview with Gaddafi himself for the thesis and before long he was invited to join the dictator’s ruling clique.

Ever since, he has enjoyed the closest relationship with the dictator.

From 1979-80 he was in charge of security at all Libyan embassies in northern Europe, during which time half a dozen exiled Libyan dissidents were cold-bloodedly assassinated in Europe by agents acting on his orders. (...)

In 1980, Musa Kusa became Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain. Within months, though, he was expelled after telling journalists outside his embassy: ‘The revolutionary committees have decided last night to kill two more people (Libyan dissidents) in the United Kingdom. I approve of this’.

Unless the British authorities co-operated, he warned that Libya would encourage terrorism throughout the British mainland by funding the IRA and providing them with weapons. It was a cynical form of blackmail of the type that Gaddafi tried on the German government by threatening to support Leftist terrorists. (...)

Following his brief spell in London, he became the Tripoli-based head of the Mathaba, the fearsome Libyan Bureau for External Security. This role helped him increase his covert support for the IRA. (...)

Intelligence agencies are also convinced he was the man who co-ordinated all operational aspects of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing which blew Pan Am Flight 103 out of the air, killing 270 passengers.

In that capacity he would have been the vital link between Gaddafi and the Lockerbie bomber Abdulbaset Al Megrahi.

This may explain why in October last year, it was Musa Kusa who travelled from Libya to see British and Scottish officials dealing with Megrahi’s application for compassionate release.

On the first occasion Musa Kusa was listed as ‘an interpreter’ rather than Minister of Security.

He would have had a very personal interest in securing the man’s release, as part of an agreement that in return for his freedom Megrahi would never reveal who had ordered and organised the bombing. It was, of course, Musa Kusa.

Flight 103 was not the only aircraft he tore from the skies. Western intelligence agents are convinced he systematically planned the deaths of 170 passengers blown up over Niger after Libyan agents planted a bomb on a flight from Chad to Paris. (...)

By 2003, he was at the heart of the MI6-led negotiations which brought the Mad Dog Gaddafi back into the civilised world, after Gaddafi offered to give up Weapons of Mass Destruction and renounce support for terrorism. (...)

The crimes I have described are probably only a handful of those for which Musa Kusa has been directly or indirectly responsible. He will have information on all manner of atrocities as well as on the Libyan arming of several terrorist organisations in Britain, Germany, Japan and the Middle East.

This is the man that Britain is now harbouring.

The Blair New Labour government, and elements in MI6, big business and academia, indulged in sordid dealings with the Gaddafi regime, which shamed this country.

Musa Kusa must be tried in a court of law and be held accountable for his countless crimes. Anything less will be greeted with outrage by the British and America public.

[RB: It appears that a significant figure in the Gaddafi regime, Mohammed Begasem Zwai (or Zway), who was formerly Minister of Justice and later ambassador in London, has just been appointed to an important position in the new regime. His part in the resolution of the Lockerbie impasse can be followed here.]

London talks on acknowledgment of Lockerbie responsibility

[What follows is the text of a report by David Leppard that was published in The Sunday Times on this date in 2003:]

Ambassador William Burns, head of the US state department’s Middle East section, is expected to meet Libyan and British officials for talks in London this Tuesday. A formal announcement is expected soon afterwards.

Sources close to the talks disclosed yesterday that officials may be close to finalising a deal in which Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi finally admits responsibility for Lockerbie.

In exchange for a formal statement of admission, the United Nations Security Council is expected to permanently lift crippling sanctions against Tripoli.

Discussions have been going on for years about compensating relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland in December 1988.

Libya has previously denied reports that it was prepared to pay £7m to each Lockerbie victim, provided sanctions were lifted. It is currently on the US state department’s list of countries that sponsor international terrorism.

This week’s London meeting will involve Burns, a US assistant secretary of state, and a senior Libyan official, probably Mohammed Abdul Quasim al-Zwai, Gadaffi’s ambassador in London. A senior Foreign Office official will also attend.

The security council has demanded that Libya pay “appropriate compensation” and accept general responsibility for the bombing. As well as renouncing terrorism, it must also undertake to comply with any future inquiry.

If those demands are fully met, UN sanctions — imposed in 1992 but suspended at the moment — will be scrapped.

America imposed its own separate sanctions after the Libyans bombed a disco used by American soldiers in Germany in 1986. Libya is desperate to get rid of the sanctions so it can sell oil.

Dan Cohen, who lost his daughter at Lockerbie, said he believed the wording of a statement admitting Libya’s responsibility had already been agreed.

At an international court in the Hague two years ago, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a senior Libyan intelligence official, was convicted of the bombing. He is now serving a life sentence at Barlinnie high security prison in Glasgow. [RB: The only evidence that Megrahi was an intelligence official came from the defector Abdul Majid Giaka whose evidence on every other issue was dismissed by the court as wholly lacking in credibility. The court gave no reasons for their acceptance of Giaka’s testimony on this single topic.]

Gadaffi has always denied responsibility for the attack. But evidence uncovered during the Scottish police investigation revealed that it had been sanctioned by the head of his own intelligence service. [RB: I have no idea what “evidence” this refers to. Certainly no such evidence was produced at the Zeist trial.]

The Libyans are said to have wanted revenge for the bombing of their country by American planes, in which Gadaffi’s six-year-old adopted daughter had been killed.

[RB: The Libyan letter acknowledging responsibility (which I played a part in drafting) can be read here.]

Solution to Lockerbie impasse in sight

[The following are two snippets from the Libya: News and Views website on this date in 1998:]

Libya's justice minister said a Libyan legal team intended to hold a new round of talks with the United Nations legal counsel for additional clarification on a trial in the Netherlands of two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a U.S. airliner. ''Preparations are going on for a new round of talks between the Libyan legal team and the UN counsel aimed at clarifications so that the trial would be fair and honest without the interference of any ambiguity or hidden intentions,'' Mohamed Belgasem al-Zwai told the Libyan Congress. [Reuters]

South African President Nelson Mandela predicted on Tuesday that a solution may be in sight to the impasse between Libya, the United States and Britain over the trial of two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie plane bombing. Mandela addressed a press conference in Abu Dhabi, where he spoke at the opening session of the annual summit of the Gulf Co-operation Council.

He said he had spoken in the last few days to US President Bill Clinton and to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and planned to speak to Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi once he returned home. "Things are moving in a satisfactory manner," Mandela said. He said Britain had agreed to remove the problem created by the lack of Libyan diplomatic representation in London by permitting the establishment of a Libyan office in Scotland, where the two suspects will serve their sentences if they are convicted at a trial set to take place in Holland. [ANC-SAPA]

[RB: A Libyan consulate was established in Glasgow after Megrahi was convicted. The consul, Abdel Rahman Swessi, was amongst the Libyan diplomats expelled from the UK in April 2011.]

Libya confirms support for proposed neutral venue trial

[On this date in 1998 Dr Jim Swire and I were in Libya. During our discussions in Cairo on 16 April 1998 at the headquarters of the Arab League, it was suggested that it would be useful for us to make a visit to Tripoli. This we did. What follows is from a press release issued following that visit:]

A meeting to discuss issues arising out of the Lockerbie bombing was held in the premises of the Libyan Foreign Office in Tripoli on the evening of Saturday 18 April 1998. Present were Mr Abdul Ati Obeidi, Under-Secretary of the Libyan Foreign Office; Mr Mohammed Belqassem Zuwiy [or Zwai], Secretary of Justice of Libya; Mr Abuzaid Omar Dorda, Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations; Dr Ibrahim Legwell, head of the defence team representing the two Libyan citizens suspected of the bombing; Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the British relatives group UK Families-Flight 103; and Professor Robert Black QC, Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and currently a visiting professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

At the meeting, discussion focused upon the plan which had been formulated in January 1994 by Professor Black for the establishment of a court to try the suspects which would: operate under the criminal law and procedure of Scotland; have in place of a jury an international panel of judges presided over by a senior Scottish judge; and, sit not in Scotland but in a neutral country such as The Netherlands.

Among the issues discussed were possible methods of appointment of the international panel of judges, and possible arrangements for the transfer of the suspects from Libya for trial and for ensuring their safety and security pending and during the trial.

Dr Legwell confirmed, as he had previously done in January 1994, that his clients agreed to stand trial before such a court if it were established. The representatives of the Libyan Government stated, as they had done in 1994 and on numerous occasions since then, that they would welcome the setting up of such a court and that if it were instituted they would permit their two citizens to stand trial before it and would co-operate in facilitating arrangements for that purpose.

Dr Swire and Prof Black undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the Government of the United Kingdom to join Libya in accepting this proposal.

Gadaffi ‘ready to admit guilt’ for Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an article by David Leppard that appeared in The Sunday Times on this date in 2003. It reads as follows:]

Ambassador William Burns, head of the US state department’s Middle East section, is expected to meet Libyan and British officials for talks in London this Tuesday. A formal announcement is expected soon afterwards.

Sources close to the talks disclosed yesterday that officials may be close to finalising a deal in which Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi finally admits responsibility for Lockerbie.

In exchange for a formal statement of admission, the United Nations Security Council is expected to permanently lift crippling sanctions against Tripoli.

Discussions have been going on for years about compensating relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland in December 1988.

Libya has previously denied reports that it was prepared to pay £7m to each Lockerbie victim, provided sanctions were lifted. It is currently on the US state department’s list of countries that sponsor international terrorism.

This week’s London meeting will involve Burns, a US assistant secretary of state, and a senior Libyan official, probably Mohammed Abdul Quasim al-Zwai, Gadaffi’s ambassador in London. A senior Foreign Office official will also attend.

The security council has demanded that Libya pay “appropriate compensation” and accept general responsibility for the bombing. As well as renouncing terrorism, it must also undertake to comply with any future inquiry.

If those demands are fully met, UN sanctions — imposed in 1992 but suspended at the moment — will be scrapped.

America imposed its own separate sanctions after the Libyans bombed a disco used by American soldiers in Germany in 1986. Libya is desperate to get rid of the sanctions so it can sell oil.

Dan Cohen, who lost his daughter at Lockerbie, said he believed the wording of a statement admitting Libya’s responsibility had already been agreed.

At an international court in the Hague two years ago, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a senior Libyan intelligence official, was convicted of the bombing. He is now serving a life sentence at Barlinnie high security prison in Glasgow. [RB: The only evidence that Megrahi was an intelligence official came from the defector Abdul Majid Giaka whose evidence on every other issue was dismissed by the court as wholly lacking in credibility. The court gave no reasons for their acceptance of Giaka’s testimony on this single topic.]

Gadaffi has always denied responsibility for the attack. But evidence uncovered during the Scottish police investigation revealed that it had been sanctioned by the head of his own intelligence service. [RB: No such evidence was presented at the trial, nor has any such evidence come into the public domain since.]

The Libyans are said to have wanted revenge for the bombing of their country by American planes, in which Gadaffi’s six-year-old adopted daughter had been killed.

Libya may compensate Lockerbie families

[This is the headline over a report published on the website of The Guardian on this date in 2001, the day after the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi and the acquittal of Lamin Fhimah. It reads as follows:]

The Libyan government is today considering compensation payments to the families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing, as a group representing the British families of those who died in the tragedy gathered in London to press for an independent public inquiry.

The Libyan ambassador to London, Mohammed al-Zwai, said today that his government will consider both compensation payments and agreements reached with the UN security council if Abdel Baset al-Megrahi's appeal against his conviction for the bombing fails. The security council agreements include the requirement that Libya offer compensation and accept responsibility for the bombing.

Megrahi, a Libyan citizen, was sentenced yesterday to life imprisonment for the murder of 270 people in the 1988 bomb attack on Pan Am flight 103. Scottish judges accepted that he was a special agent for the Libyan government, thereby implicating Tripoli in the attack. According to Libyan television reports, Megrahi will lodge an appeal against his conviction within 14 days.

Mr Zwai's comments seem to contradict statements out of Tripoli that the Libyan government bears no responsibility for the bombing. Libyan foreign minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam has insisted that Tripoli will never accept responsibility for the attack.

Colonel Muammar Gadafy's government has not been indicted in the bombing, but the Lockerbie blast was alleged to have been committed to "further the purposes" of Libyan intelligence. The prosecution has charged that the attack was carried out to avenge the US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986.

Following the verdict, Libya called for an end to the UN sanctions imposed after the Lockerbie bombing.

"The sanctions imposed on Libya must be lifted completely because the Lockerbie case was used as a pretext to delay their lifting," foreign ministry spokesman Hassouna Chiouch told a news conference. "Now that the court has ended the case, the sanctions must be lifted completely."

"We extend our hand to the United States to build relations based on mutual respect and benefit for the two parties," Chiouch said. "Now that the Lockerbie case is behind, we look forward with interest to improving our relations with the United States in the interests of both countries and of peace worldwide."

Foreign secretary Robin Cook said Britain and the United States both agreed Libya "must" fulfil the UN security council resolutions before the sanctions will be lifted. Mr Cook stressed that Libya is barred from offering "no fault" compensation.

"Libya has in the past said it would pay compensation if there was a guilty verdict. There has been a guilty verdict, and a guilty verdict against a very senior official of Libyan intelligence," said Mr Cook.

"Libya can't walk away from their responsibility for the act of their official," he added.

In Washington, President George Bush praised the conviction and said the Libyan government must take responsibility for the attack. After less than two weeks in office, the Bush administration faces a major foreign policy decision on how hard to squeeze Libya.

State department spokesman Richard Boucher laid down four demands with which the United States said Libya must comply.

"That means revealing everything they know about the Lockerbie bombing, paying reparations, a clear declaration acknowledging responsibility for the actions of the Libyan officials and clear unambiguous actions which demonstrate the Libyan government understands its responsibilities," Mr Boucher said.

Meanwhile, the British families of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing are gathering in London today to press for further inquiries into the disaster. The group, which includes high profile campaigners Dr Jim Swire and the Rev John Mosey, will call for an independent public inquiry into unanswered questions surrounding the circumstances of the bombing.

The families have always maintained they want a public inquiry into issues not fully explored in the Fatal Accident Inquiry which was completed in 1991 or in the criminal trial which ended yesterday.

Most crucially, they want the failure of the intelligence services and the aviation authorities to stop the bomb getting on board to come under the spotlight.

Several bomb warnings were circulating at the time of the disaster including the so-called 'Toshiba warning' which advised that a bomb hidden inside a radio cassette recorder could be smuggled on to a plane. The bomb which blew up the Pan Am flight was hidden inside a Toshiba radio cassette recorder.

Previous calls for a public inquiry have been rejected on the grounds that such a move would prejudice the long-awaited criminal trial. Now that the trial is finally over, the families will argue that there are no grounds for rejecting a public inquiry.

Scotland's top law officer said today that insufficient evidence exists at this time for more prosecutions over the Lockerbie bombing. Colin Boyd QC, the Lord Advocate, added that it is clear that the man convicted yesterday for the outrage was not acting alone.

Following the announcement of the verdict yesterday, Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah, Megrahi's co-accused who was acquitted, left the court at Camp Zeist, a former US military base in the Netherlands, a free man.

Taken to a safe house last night, he was expected to leave the Netherlands for home today. The time and place of his departure are closely guarded secrets. Megrahi remained in the specially built prison where he and Fhimah had been held since Tripoli handed them over in April 1999.

An official source said Megrahi's mother had been taken to a Tripoli hospital after collapsing, overwhelmed by news that her son had been jailed for life.

An appeal would be heard at Camp Zeist, except in the highly unlikely event Megrahi chose not to be present - in which case it would be held in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.

And under the terms of the groundbreaking deal under which the Libyans were brought for trial, Megrahi stays at the camp until the entire legal process is complete.

Any appeal would take months to get under way, legal experts say. There is no automatic right of appeal in Scottish law, and that alone complicates and delays the process significantly.