[This is the headline over an article published today on the Bloomberg Business Week website. It reads in part:]
President Ronald Reagan called Muammar Qaddafi a “mad dog” in 1986 when he ordered air strikes on Tripoli. A quarter century later, it might be the Libyan leader’s fellow Arabs who ultimately broker his downfall.
After opposing the Reagan response to Qaddafi’s terrorism, the 22-member Arab League is backing the bombing campaign led by Britain, France and the US to ground Libya’s air force and halt Qaddafi’s attempt to crush a rebellion. (...)
Before renouncing nuclear weapons in 2002, Qaddafi was a pariah as one of the earliest backers of terror attacks abroad, according to the US and European governments. His regime has been responsible for the death of at least 440 people in four countries, as well as brutality in Libya.
Reagan’s military action followed the April 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed two US servicemen and a Turkish woman. Four people, including a Libyan diplomat, were convicted by a German court for participating in the attack. (...)
The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people and the only man convicted of the atrocity is a former Libyan intelligence officer. It was followed a year later by the attack on a French UTA plane over Niger, when 170 people died. Qaddafi in 2004 agreed to pay $170 million in compensation, the French government said. (...)
The final break with the Arab world came March 12 when the Arab League, meeting in an emergency session, asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, which has Africa’s largest oil reserves, to thwart attacks by Qaddafi’s forces on civilians.
While Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said on March 12 one or two members of the Cairo-based group had voiced concerns, he reiterated this week that countries remain “committed” to UN efforts to halt the 68-year-old Qaddafi. (...)
In London, a police officer was killed in 1984 by gunfire from inside the Libyan embassy, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported at the time. The Libyan suspects were allowed to leave the country under diplomatic immunity and the U.K. broke diplomatic relations with Qaddafi.
The turnaround in relations with the West started in 1999, when Qaddafi allowed the extradition of two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing. He abandoned nuclear weapons development efforts after 2002 and pledged to destroy a chemical weapons stockpile. He also renounced terrorism.
Libya paid $1.5 billion into a compensation fund for terrorism victims to settle claims related to attacks, including the 1988 bombing of the U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certified in 2008.
The actions led to an easing of sanctions and improved ties with the U.S. and Europe. Western investment to expand Libyan oil production followed, as did Libyan investment in the West ranging from a stake in Italian bank UniCredit SpA to a 1.5 million-pound ($2.4 million) donation to the London School of Economics. (...)
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visited him in his tent in Tripoli in 2004 and said Qaddafi had found “common cause” with the West in fighting terrorism.
Scottish authorities released Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al- Megrahi, the only person convicted of the jetliner attack over Lockerbie, on compassionate grounds in 2009 because he was said to be dying of cancer. He remains alive, according to Scottish officials responsible for monitoring him.
[With another busy weekend in prospect at Gannaga Lodge, it is unlikely that there will be further posts to this blog before Monday, 28 March.]
Friday, 25 March 2011
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Shady dealings helped Qaddafi build fortune and regime
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The New York Times. It reads in part:]
In 2009, top aides to Col Muammar el-Qaddafi called together 15 executives from global energy companies operating in Libya’s oil fields and issued an extraordinary demand: Shell out the money for his country’s $1.5 billion bill for its role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist attacks.
If the companies did not comply, the Libyan officials warned, there would be “serious consequences” for their oil leases, according to a State Department summary of the meeting.
Many of those businesses balked, saying that covering Libya’s legal settlement with victims’ families for acts of terrorism was unthinkable. But some companies, including several based in the United States, appeared willing to give in to Libya’s coercion and make what amounted to payoffs to keep doing business, according to industry executives, American officials and State Department documents.
The episode and others like it, the officials said, reflect a Libyan culture rife with corruption, kickbacks, strong-arm tactics and political patronage since the United States reopened trade with Colonel Qaddafi’s government in 2004. As American and international oil companies, telecommunications firms and contractors moved into the Libyan market, they discovered that Colonel Qaddafi or his loyalists often sought to extract millions of dollars in “signing bonuses” and “consultancy contracts” — or insisted that the strongman’s sons get a piece of the action through shotgun partnerships.
“Libya is a kleptocracy in which the regime — either the al-Qadhafi family itself or its close political allies — has a direct stake in anything worth buying, selling or owning,” a classified State Department cable said in 2009, using the department’s spelling of Qaddafi.
The wealth that Colonel Qaddafi’s family and his government accumulated with the help of international corporations in the years since the lifting of economic sanctions by the West helped fortify his hold on his country. While the outcome of the military intervention under way by the United States and allied countries is uncertain, Colonel Qaddafi’s resources — including a stash of tens of billions of dollars in cash that American officials believe he is using to pay soldiers, mercenaries and supporters — may help him avert, or at least delay, his removal from power. (...)
In the first few years after trade restrictions were lifted — Colonel Qaddafi had given up his country’s nuclear capabilities and pledged to renounce terrorism — many American companies were hesitant to do business with Libya’s government, officials said. But with an agreement on a settlement over Libya’s role in the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, finally reached in 2008, officials at the United States Commerce Department began to serve as self-described matchmakers for American businesses. (...)
When Qaddafi aides demanded payment for the Lockerbie settlement from oil companies operating in Libya, a State Department cable in February 2009 reported, industry executives had indicated “that smaller operators and service companies might relent and pay.” Several industry officials and someone close to the settlement, all speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the payments went through but declined to identify the businesses.
Other companies also struck costly deals with the government. In 2008, Occidental Petroleum, based in California, paid a $1 billion “signing bonus” to the Libyan government as part of 30-year agreement. A company spokesman said it was not uncommon for firms to pay large bonuses for long-term contracts. (...)
Looking back on the decision in 2004 to resume business dealings, Juan Zarate, a former top White House and Treasury official in the administration of President George W Bush, said that officials had believed then that the benefits of trying to rehabilitate Colonel Qaddafi outweighed the obvious risks. “It was a deal with the devil,” Mr Zarate said.
“The hope was that with normalization, Qaddafi would serve less as the mad dog of the Middle East and more as a partner,” he added. “But I don’t think this is the way anyone would have wanted it to work out.”
In 2009, top aides to Col Muammar el-Qaddafi called together 15 executives from global energy companies operating in Libya’s oil fields and issued an extraordinary demand: Shell out the money for his country’s $1.5 billion bill for its role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist attacks.
If the companies did not comply, the Libyan officials warned, there would be “serious consequences” for their oil leases, according to a State Department summary of the meeting.
Many of those businesses balked, saying that covering Libya’s legal settlement with victims’ families for acts of terrorism was unthinkable. But some companies, including several based in the United States, appeared willing to give in to Libya’s coercion and make what amounted to payoffs to keep doing business, according to industry executives, American officials and State Department documents.
The episode and others like it, the officials said, reflect a Libyan culture rife with corruption, kickbacks, strong-arm tactics and political patronage since the United States reopened trade with Colonel Qaddafi’s government in 2004. As American and international oil companies, telecommunications firms and contractors moved into the Libyan market, they discovered that Colonel Qaddafi or his loyalists often sought to extract millions of dollars in “signing bonuses” and “consultancy contracts” — or insisted that the strongman’s sons get a piece of the action through shotgun partnerships.
“Libya is a kleptocracy in which the regime — either the al-Qadhafi family itself or its close political allies — has a direct stake in anything worth buying, selling or owning,” a classified State Department cable said in 2009, using the department’s spelling of Qaddafi.
The wealth that Colonel Qaddafi’s family and his government accumulated with the help of international corporations in the years since the lifting of economic sanctions by the West helped fortify his hold on his country. While the outcome of the military intervention under way by the United States and allied countries is uncertain, Colonel Qaddafi’s resources — including a stash of tens of billions of dollars in cash that American officials believe he is using to pay soldiers, mercenaries and supporters — may help him avert, or at least delay, his removal from power. (...)
In the first few years after trade restrictions were lifted — Colonel Qaddafi had given up his country’s nuclear capabilities and pledged to renounce terrorism — many American companies were hesitant to do business with Libya’s government, officials said. But with an agreement on a settlement over Libya’s role in the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, finally reached in 2008, officials at the United States Commerce Department began to serve as self-described matchmakers for American businesses. (...)
When Qaddafi aides demanded payment for the Lockerbie settlement from oil companies operating in Libya, a State Department cable in February 2009 reported, industry executives had indicated “that smaller operators and service companies might relent and pay.” Several industry officials and someone close to the settlement, all speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the payments went through but declined to identify the businesses.
Other companies also struck costly deals with the government. In 2008, Occidental Petroleum, based in California, paid a $1 billion “signing bonus” to the Libyan government as part of 30-year agreement. A company spokesman said it was not uncommon for firms to pay large bonuses for long-term contracts. (...)
Looking back on the decision in 2004 to resume business dealings, Juan Zarate, a former top White House and Treasury official in the administration of President George W Bush, said that officials had believed then that the benefits of trying to rehabilitate Colonel Qaddafi outweighed the obvious risks. “It was a deal with the devil,” Mr Zarate said.
“The hope was that with normalization, Qaddafi would serve less as the mad dog of the Middle East and more as a partner,” he added. “But I don’t think this is the way anyone would have wanted it to work out.”
Council sure Megrahi still living in suburban Tripoli home
[What follows is from a report in today's edition of The Scotsman.]
The Lockerbie bomber has had "recent" contact with the Scottish council tasked with keeping tabs on his life licence release.
And the council is satisfied he has not moved home in Libya.
Despite reports that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had been spirited away by the Gaddafi regime, a spokesman for East Renfrewshire Council, the council tasked with monitoring the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, said it is "satisfied that he is not in breach of any licence conditions".
Sources close to the monitoring authority say the supervising officer in the case is satisfied that Megrahi is still at the same address in a Tripoli suburb.
The council contacted the bomber amid reports he had been moved to a safe house by the Gaddafi regime as coalition UN forces targeted air defences around the Libyan capital.
Part of Megrahi's life licence conditions state he must alert the council to any change of address and agree it with it in advance. It has a secure videolink to the bomber, and call him as and when it deems necessary.
The spokesman added: "The contact is when we need to speak to him. We have done. That contact was very recent."
[A useful counterweight to some of the more imaginative material being published in the Western media.]
The Lockerbie bomber has had "recent" contact with the Scottish council tasked with keeping tabs on his life licence release.
And the council is satisfied he has not moved home in Libya.
Despite reports that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had been spirited away by the Gaddafi regime, a spokesman for East Renfrewshire Council, the council tasked with monitoring the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, said it is "satisfied that he is not in breach of any licence conditions".
Sources close to the monitoring authority say the supervising officer in the case is satisfied that Megrahi is still at the same address in a Tripoli suburb.
The council contacted the bomber amid reports he had been moved to a safe house by the Gaddafi regime as coalition UN forces targeted air defences around the Libyan capital.
Part of Megrahi's life licence conditions state he must alert the council to any change of address and agree it with it in advance. It has a secure videolink to the bomber, and call him as and when it deems necessary.
The spokesman added: "The contact is when we need to speak to him. We have done. That contact was very recent."
[A useful counterweight to some of the more imaginative material being published in the Western media.]
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Did Gaddafi really order the Lockerbie bombing?
[This is the headline over a letter from Thomas McLaughlin in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
You report that the unfolding debacle in Libya offers hope of further indictments of those involved in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (“Conflict brings new hope of convicting others involved in Lockerbie attack”, The Herald, March 21).
The Lord Advocate should not hold her breath. Officers of the Dumfries and Galloway police force should not plan a trip to Libya soon, even if that country survives intact.
The source of these (false) hopes is Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Libya’s former justice minister who has claimed, “the orders were given by Gaddafi himself.” As Mandy Rice-Davis once remarked, “he would say that, wouldn’t he?” Jalil, now the Brother Leader’s sworn enemy and head of a provisional government, has courted Western sympathy, in competition with his former boss, using this claim as his trump card. Muammar Gadaffi’s counter-bid, that al Qaeda were trying to topple him (now seemingly in alliance with Crusaders), was deemed to lack credibility.
But truth, as “Blairaq” veterans know only too well, is the first casualty of war. If anyone has evidence of Libyan complicity then surely Libya’s own former justice minister has? It is, though, now a month since he made the claim. Where is the evidence? Has it yet to be manufactured –like so much else that helped convict Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi?
[A letter from Dr Jim Swire in yesterday's edition of The Herald reads as follows:]
In 1986, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher colluded with US President Ronald Reagan in facilitating the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi – revenge for an alleged Libyan terrorist bomb in Germany.
Inspection of the Gaddafi family residence of the time, preserved as a ruin ever since, and seen on our screens again these days, makes it obvious that the US bomb which partially destroyed the residence had been intended to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi (“New Gaddafi blitz”, The Herald, March 21).
Instead the blast and shrapnel killed Gaddafi’s adopted daughter Hannah, aged 18 months, asleep in her bedroom. Some 30 Libyan civilians died too that night. Their relatives still grieve as we do.
In 1993, nearly two years after the publication of indictments of two Libyan citizens for their alleged part in causing the Lockerbie disaster, Lady Thatcher wrote, in praise of this action, in The Downing Street Years.
She wrote: “First it [the bombing raid] turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined … the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place. Gaddafi had not been destroyed but he had been humbled. There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years.”
Two years later the Lockerbie tragedy occurred.
In 1991, when the indictments were issued, I first visited Gaddafi to beg him to allow his citizens to appear before a Scottish court. I also asked him to put up a picture of Flora on the wall of Hannah’s bedroom, beside one of Hannah. Beneath we put a message in Arabic and English. It was still there in 2010 when I was last in Tripoli.
It reads: “ The consequence of the use of violence is the death of innocent people.”
Even forbidden as we private citizens still are, to see the secret documents from those days, the sentiments of Flora’s message remain secure. I hope the plaque will not be destroyed in a second attempt at assassination. Libyans should decide their own future, as we ours.
[The uniformly bellicose views of a selection of US relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing can be found in an article by Brian Bolduc on the National Review website entitled Qaddafi Must Go: Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 demand the dictator’s ouster.]
You report that the unfolding debacle in Libya offers hope of further indictments of those involved in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (“Conflict brings new hope of convicting others involved in Lockerbie attack”, The Herald, March 21).
The Lord Advocate should not hold her breath. Officers of the Dumfries and Galloway police force should not plan a trip to Libya soon, even if that country survives intact.
The source of these (false) hopes is Mustafa Abdel Jalil, Libya’s former justice minister who has claimed, “the orders were given by Gaddafi himself.” As Mandy Rice-Davis once remarked, “he would say that, wouldn’t he?” Jalil, now the Brother Leader’s sworn enemy and head of a provisional government, has courted Western sympathy, in competition with his former boss, using this claim as his trump card. Muammar Gadaffi’s counter-bid, that al Qaeda were trying to topple him (now seemingly in alliance with Crusaders), was deemed to lack credibility.
But truth, as “Blairaq” veterans know only too well, is the first casualty of war. If anyone has evidence of Libyan complicity then surely Libya’s own former justice minister has? It is, though, now a month since he made the claim. Where is the evidence? Has it yet to be manufactured –like so much else that helped convict Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi?
[A letter from Dr Jim Swire in yesterday's edition of The Herald reads as follows:]
In 1986, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher colluded with US President Ronald Reagan in facilitating the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi – revenge for an alleged Libyan terrorist bomb in Germany.
Inspection of the Gaddafi family residence of the time, preserved as a ruin ever since, and seen on our screens again these days, makes it obvious that the US bomb which partially destroyed the residence had been intended to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi (“New Gaddafi blitz”, The Herald, March 21).
Instead the blast and shrapnel killed Gaddafi’s adopted daughter Hannah, aged 18 months, asleep in her bedroom. Some 30 Libyan civilians died too that night. Their relatives still grieve as we do.
In 1993, nearly two years after the publication of indictments of two Libyan citizens for their alleged part in causing the Lockerbie disaster, Lady Thatcher wrote, in praise of this action, in The Downing Street Years.
She wrote: “First it [the bombing raid] turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined … the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place. Gaddafi had not been destroyed but he had been humbled. There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years.”
Two years later the Lockerbie tragedy occurred.
In 1991, when the indictments were issued, I first visited Gaddafi to beg him to allow his citizens to appear before a Scottish court. I also asked him to put up a picture of Flora on the wall of Hannah’s bedroom, beside one of Hannah. Beneath we put a message in Arabic and English. It was still there in 2010 when I was last in Tripoli.
It reads: “ The consequence of the use of violence is the death of innocent people.”
Even forbidden as we private citizens still are, to see the secret documents from those days, the sentiments of Flora’s message remain secure. I hope the plaque will not be destroyed in a second attempt at assassination. Libyans should decide their own future, as we ours.
[The uniformly bellicose views of a selection of US relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing can be found in an article by Brian Bolduc on the National Review website entitled Qaddafi Must Go: Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 demand the dictator’s ouster.]
Bid to nail second Lockerbie bomber after double jeopardy law scrapped
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Daily Record. It reads in part:]
The man cleared of the Lockerbie bombing could face a second trial for mass murder.
MSPs last night scrapped Scotland's 800-year-old double jeopardy law, which prevents someone standing trial twice for the same offence.
And that has opened the door for a second trial for Libyan Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah.
Legal sources claim there is "new and compelling evidence" linking him to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. [RB: For the Crown to produce any compelling evidence at all -- new or old -- against either Fhimah or Megrahi would be a novelty.]
And if Colonel Gaddafi's regime collapses, law chiefs will try to bring Fhimah back to Scotland for a retrial.
A top level source told the Record: "Fhimah is very much on the radar but everything depends on what happens in Libya in the coming days and weeks."
Fhimah was unanimously cleared of the mass murder of 270 people after a trial in Holland under Scots law in 2001. Three judges accepted he was in Sweden at the time the bomb was planted. [RB: This statement is arrant nonsense. There was no evidence to this effect and the trial judges made no such finding. The journalist appears to have confused Fhimah with Abu Talb.]
But his co-accused Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty and jailed for life. Said to be dying from prostate cancer, Megrahi was controversially freed on compassionate grounds in 2009.
And Fhimah was there to hug him on the steps of the plane which brought him home to Libya. Now prosecutors believe their new evidence would see him convicted.
But that will only happen if there is regime change in Tripoli - and any new government agrees Fhimah should face retrial.
The scrapping of the double jeopardy rule follows a similar change to English law in 2003.
The man cleared of the Lockerbie bombing could face a second trial for mass murder.
MSPs last night scrapped Scotland's 800-year-old double jeopardy law, which prevents someone standing trial twice for the same offence.
And that has opened the door for a second trial for Libyan Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah.
Legal sources claim there is "new and compelling evidence" linking him to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. [RB: For the Crown to produce any compelling evidence at all -- new or old -- against either Fhimah or Megrahi would be a novelty.]
And if Colonel Gaddafi's regime collapses, law chiefs will try to bring Fhimah back to Scotland for a retrial.
A top level source told the Record: "Fhimah is very much on the radar but everything depends on what happens in Libya in the coming days and weeks."
Fhimah was unanimously cleared of the mass murder of 270 people after a trial in Holland under Scots law in 2001. Three judges accepted he was in Sweden at the time the bomb was planted. [RB: This statement is arrant nonsense. There was no evidence to this effect and the trial judges made no such finding. The journalist appears to have confused Fhimah with Abu Talb.]
But his co-accused Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty and jailed for life. Said to be dying from prostate cancer, Megrahi was controversially freed on compassionate grounds in 2009.
And Fhimah was there to hug him on the steps of the plane which brought him home to Libya. Now prosecutors believe their new evidence would see him convicted.
But that will only happen if there is regime change in Tripoli - and any new government agrees Fhimah should face retrial.
The scrapping of the double jeopardy rule follows a similar change to English law in 2003.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Flimsy evidence
[What follows is a short excerpt from an article with the above title by Oxford-based researcher Jason Pack published yesterday on the US National Public Radio website.]
On flimsy evidence, Libya was found guilty of the devastating 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Europe was finally on board for comprehensive UN sanctions of Libya, which endured from 1992 to 1999.
In 1999, feeling the pinch caused by his decaying oil infrastructure and declining revenues, Gadhafi turned over the two suspected Lockerbie bombers for trial in the Netherlands (only one, Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, was later convicted). This action caused UN sanctions to be suspended. As more countries began trading with Libya, the US policy dating back to Reagan of actively containing Gadhafi and hoping for his ouster was no longer feasible.
In the new millennium, US and British negotiators intensified their covert dealings with Libyan diplomats, and in 2003, Gadhafi made his first payment of compensation to the Lockerbie victims' families. At the same time, the colonel declared his desire to voluntarily give up his weapons of mass destruction program. (...)
From 2004 to 2010, US diplomats and businessman embarked on the long and hard road of normalization. Erratic Libyan behavior and electorally motivated grandstanding by US congressmen — generally on third-tier issues like Gadhafi's desire to pitch a tent in Central Park or Megrahi's release from a Scottish prison for health reasons — frequently derailed progress.
On flimsy evidence, Libya was found guilty of the devastating 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Europe was finally on board for comprehensive UN sanctions of Libya, which endured from 1992 to 1999.
In 1999, feeling the pinch caused by his decaying oil infrastructure and declining revenues, Gadhafi turned over the two suspected Lockerbie bombers for trial in the Netherlands (only one, Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, was later convicted). This action caused UN sanctions to be suspended. As more countries began trading with Libya, the US policy dating back to Reagan of actively containing Gadhafi and hoping for his ouster was no longer feasible.
In the new millennium, US and British negotiators intensified their covert dealings with Libyan diplomats, and in 2003, Gadhafi made his first payment of compensation to the Lockerbie victims' families. At the same time, the colonel declared his desire to voluntarily give up his weapons of mass destruction program. (...)
From 2004 to 2010, US diplomats and businessman embarked on the long and hard road of normalization. Erratic Libyan behavior and electorally motivated grandstanding by US congressmen — generally on third-tier issues like Gadhafi's desire to pitch a tent in Central Park or Megrahi's release from a Scottish prison for health reasons — frequently derailed progress.
Monday, 21 March 2011
Megrahi leaves Tripoli
[What follows is from a report in yesterday's edition of The Mail on Sunday.]
Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was among thousands evacuated in Libya yesterday.
The 58-year-old was moved from his family home in Tripoli to a secure unit. ‘We know targets are already being worked out by the West, and Brother Al Megrahi is certain to be high on the list,’ said an impeccably placed source within Gaddafi’s regime, which views the bomber as a national hero.
The source, who helped negotiate the convicted murderer’s 2009 release from a Scottish prison, added: ‘It would make life very easy for the West if Al Megrahi was no longer a problem – we will do everything we can to protect him.’
Plain-clothes police and armed soldiers were still visible around Al Megrahi’s home in the New Damascus district of Tripoli, but neighbours confirmed he had been moved. ‘The government does not want him here – it is too dangerous,’ said one.
Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was among thousands evacuated in Libya yesterday.
The 58-year-old was moved from his family home in Tripoli to a secure unit. ‘We know targets are already being worked out by the West, and Brother Al Megrahi is certain to be high on the list,’ said an impeccably placed source within Gaddafi’s regime, which views the bomber as a national hero.
The source, who helped negotiate the convicted murderer’s 2009 release from a Scottish prison, added: ‘It would make life very easy for the West if Al Megrahi was no longer a problem – we will do everything we can to protect him.’
Plain-clothes police and armed soldiers were still visible around Al Megrahi’s home in the New Damascus district of Tripoli, but neighbours confirmed he had been moved. ‘The government does not want him here – it is too dangerous,’ said one.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Libya no fly zone
[What follows is the text of a press release dated 18 March from the Scottish Government. I post it simply to confirm to anxious readers that, notwithstanding fearsome computer and internet connection difficulties, a trip to Cape Town and a big function at Gannaga Lodge, this blog is still operational.]
Welcoming the agreement by the United Nations Security Council of a "no fly zone" in Libya in order to protect civilians - which imposes a "ban on all flights in Libyan airspace" except for aid planes, as well as other measures such as toughening up the arms embargo and widening of the asset freeze - First Minister Alex Salmond said:
"The fundamental principle of international intervention is that it must be done under the authority of a United Nations mandate, and therefore I welcome the agreement of a 'no fly zone' with the clear legal underpinning of a Security Council resolution.
"The resolution - which proposes a range of measures - is a lesson to the nay-sayers who have dismissed the UN and sought to undermine its authority at every turn. This agreement - which carries the support of the Arab League, as well as the wider international community - is a vindication of the ability of the UN to act."
Mr Salmond - who met with a committee of representatives of the Libyan community in Scotland at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday - added:
"What is vital now is that military intervention delivers the objective of securing the welfare and saving lives of innocent civilians - which is now extremely urgent - that there are agreed aims, and that there is a clear exit strategy."
Welcoming the agreement by the United Nations Security Council of a "no fly zone" in Libya in order to protect civilians - which imposes a "ban on all flights in Libyan airspace" except for aid planes, as well as other measures such as toughening up the arms embargo and widening of the asset freeze - First Minister Alex Salmond said:
"The fundamental principle of international intervention is that it must be done under the authority of a United Nations mandate, and therefore I welcome the agreement of a 'no fly zone' with the clear legal underpinning of a Security Council resolution.
"The resolution - which proposes a range of measures - is a lesson to the nay-sayers who have dismissed the UN and sought to undermine its authority at every turn. This agreement - which carries the support of the Arab League, as well as the wider international community - is a vindication of the ability of the UN to act."
Mr Salmond - who met with a committee of representatives of the Libyan community in Scotland at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday - added:
"What is vital now is that military intervention delivers the objective of securing the welfare and saving lives of innocent civilians - which is now extremely urgent - that there are agreed aims, and that there is a clear exit strategy."
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Press release from Families of Pan Am 103
[Families of Pan Am 103, one of the US organisations of relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie disaster, issued a press release on the current Libyan situation on 14 March. It reads as follows (with links deleted):]
Gaddafi has been branded by the international community as a serial violator of human rights, as well as by his own people. He is also the admitted No. 2 international terrorist, second only to Osama Bin Laden, having caused the murder of hundreds of Americans, French, UK and other innocent citizens in the bombings of U.S. bound Pan Am 103 killing 270, UTA flight 772 killing 170, the La Belle Disco bombing in Berlin, dozens of other terrorist attacks, and delivering large shipments of plastic explosives for IRA terrorist bombings, plus killing thousands of his own people who regularly disappear into his torture chambers or are assassinated abroad. (...)
Oil companies have invested $50 billion with the Gaddafi regime since U.S. bilateral sanctions were lifted five years ago. (...)
Oil interests therefore have a financial interest to let Gaddafi stay in power. Without a no fly zone and U.S. help, Gaddafi is expected to destroy the rebel forces. He has promised and has apparently begun to slaughter thousands in a "river of blood" all Libyans who have opposed him. With a Gaddafi victory, there likely will follow a new genocide for Libyans and a possible return to terrorism.
Prior to turnover of the Pan Am 103 indicted terrorists for trial, a letter by former UN Secretary Kofi Annan stated that the U.S. and UK had agreed not to pursue the case so as to destabilize the Gaddafi regime. (...) When Gaddafi agreed to give up his WMD program in 2003 after the U.S. invaded Iraq and Libya was labeled as part of a terrorist "axis of evil" by President George W. Bush, secret talks were held in London by top U.S. and UK officials, and Gaddafi's secret police henchman. The agreements reached remain secret, but after Libyan sanctions were lifted, the U.S. and UK both refused to pursue the criminal investigations of the Lockerbie bombing, notwithstanding Libya's formal promise to the UN that it would fully cooperate with U.S. criminal investigations of its admitted aviation bombings. Embarrassment for U.S. officials involved in the secret dealings with the Gaddafi regime is apparently another unstated reason for U.S. government inaction.
After the UK released the convicted Lockerbie bomber to Libya in 2009, the arms embargo was lifted and arms contracts allowed Gaddafi to buy modern weapons now being used against the Libyan people. (...)
President Obama has said Gaddafi must go "immediately," and that the U.S. is "considering all options," but so far has failed to take any military action to back up his words. If he does nothing now after peaceful demonstrators have been slaughtered and Gaddafi threatens genocide against his own people who do not support him, President Obama will have shown the world how weak his crisis leadership is.
Secretary Clinton gave a major speech in January that the U.S. will now support democratic forces in the Middle East; however, she doesn't favor a no fly zone needed to save a Free Libya and has not recognized the Libyan National Council in Benghazi. No fly zones in northern Iraq protected the Kurds from slaughter by Saddam Hussein, and saved many lives in Kosovo and Bosnia. Failure to impose this in southern Iraq allowed Saddam to crush after the Gulf War a 1991 rebellion that could have deposed him and avoided the entire Iraq War. Instead, this week Secretary Clinton is scheduled to close the Libyan embassy and evict the Libyan diplomats who are now opposing Gaddafi.
The UN was established after WWII mainly for collective security, so dictators could not run rampant and start major wars by international inaction. UN Security Council Resolution 1970 and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide which the U.S. supports provides for force to stop genocide within a nation member. Tomorrow a No Fly resolution is expected to be presented. A petition in support by concerned citizens nearly a million strong is available on line. (...)
"If the U.S. does not act and Gaddafi wins, the U.S. will have restored an old enemy and sent a message to all democratic forces in oppressive regimes that we are indeed feckless, unreliable, oil sucking hypocrites," stated Paul Hudson, father of a Lockerbie victim and co-president of the Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie.
Gaddafi has been branded by the international community as a serial violator of human rights, as well as by his own people. He is also the admitted No. 2 international terrorist, second only to Osama Bin Laden, having caused the murder of hundreds of Americans, French, UK and other innocent citizens in the bombings of U.S. bound Pan Am 103 killing 270, UTA flight 772 killing 170, the La Belle Disco bombing in Berlin, dozens of other terrorist attacks, and delivering large shipments of plastic explosives for IRA terrorist bombings, plus killing thousands of his own people who regularly disappear into his torture chambers or are assassinated abroad. (...)
Oil companies have invested $50 billion with the Gaddafi regime since U.S. bilateral sanctions were lifted five years ago. (...)
Oil interests therefore have a financial interest to let Gaddafi stay in power. Without a no fly zone and U.S. help, Gaddafi is expected to destroy the rebel forces. He has promised and has apparently begun to slaughter thousands in a "river of blood" all Libyans who have opposed him. With a Gaddafi victory, there likely will follow a new genocide for Libyans and a possible return to terrorism.
Prior to turnover of the Pan Am 103 indicted terrorists for trial, a letter by former UN Secretary Kofi Annan stated that the U.S. and UK had agreed not to pursue the case so as to destabilize the Gaddafi regime. (...) When Gaddafi agreed to give up his WMD program in 2003 after the U.S. invaded Iraq and Libya was labeled as part of a terrorist "axis of evil" by President George W. Bush, secret talks were held in London by top U.S. and UK officials, and Gaddafi's secret police henchman. The agreements reached remain secret, but after Libyan sanctions were lifted, the U.S. and UK both refused to pursue the criminal investigations of the Lockerbie bombing, notwithstanding Libya's formal promise to the UN that it would fully cooperate with U.S. criminal investigations of its admitted aviation bombings. Embarrassment for U.S. officials involved in the secret dealings with the Gaddafi regime is apparently another unstated reason for U.S. government inaction.
After the UK released the convicted Lockerbie bomber to Libya in 2009, the arms embargo was lifted and arms contracts allowed Gaddafi to buy modern weapons now being used against the Libyan people. (...)
President Obama has said Gaddafi must go "immediately," and that the U.S. is "considering all options," but so far has failed to take any military action to back up his words. If he does nothing now after peaceful demonstrators have been slaughtered and Gaddafi threatens genocide against his own people who do not support him, President Obama will have shown the world how weak his crisis leadership is.
Secretary Clinton gave a major speech in January that the U.S. will now support democratic forces in the Middle East; however, she doesn't favor a no fly zone needed to save a Free Libya and has not recognized the Libyan National Council in Benghazi. No fly zones in northern Iraq protected the Kurds from slaughter by Saddam Hussein, and saved many lives in Kosovo and Bosnia. Failure to impose this in southern Iraq allowed Saddam to crush after the Gulf War a 1991 rebellion that could have deposed him and avoided the entire Iraq War. Instead, this week Secretary Clinton is scheduled to close the Libyan embassy and evict the Libyan diplomats who are now opposing Gaddafi.
The UN was established after WWII mainly for collective security, so dictators could not run rampant and start major wars by international inaction. UN Security Council Resolution 1970 and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide which the U.S. supports provides for force to stop genocide within a nation member. Tomorrow a No Fly resolution is expected to be presented. A petition in support by concerned citizens nearly a million strong is available on line. (...)
"If the U.S. does not act and Gaddafi wins, the U.S. will have restored an old enemy and sent a message to all democratic forces in oppressive regimes that we are indeed feckless, unreliable, oil sucking hypocrites," stated Paul Hudson, father of a Lockerbie victim and co-president of the Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie.
We must support rebels in Libya
[This is the heading over a letter from Duncan McFarlane published in The Herald on 15 March. It reads as follows:]
Too many people, including myself, have been looking at what’s happening in Libya with wariness after war propaganda from Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq from 2002.
There is propaganda today: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s trial was a sham and no-one knows who carried out the Lockerbie bombing; and Muammar Gaddafi has never used chemical weapons against Libyan rebels.
What’s happening in Libya is like Iraq in 1991, when there were rebellions with majority support against the dictatorship, but the dictatorship crushed them because the US and its allies allowed them to, on the calculation that a successful Shia rebellion would increase Iranian influence in Iraq. Similarly the Barack Obama administration is wary of supporting rebels, some of whom, such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have been allies of Al Qaeda.
The rebels are mostly not LIFG. If we don’t back them the likelihood is they will be massacred just like Shia rebels and civilians in the south of Iraq were in 1991. It’s right to be uncertain of reports based on past propaganda; and right to remember the ulterior motives of most governments, but we know from Gaddafi’s past practice that many who criticised him will be killed in public hangings or private disappearances if his forces win.
Too many people, including myself, have been looking at what’s happening in Libya with wariness after war propaganda from Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq from 2002.
There is propaganda today: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s trial was a sham and no-one knows who carried out the Lockerbie bombing; and Muammar Gaddafi has never used chemical weapons against Libyan rebels.
What’s happening in Libya is like Iraq in 1991, when there were rebellions with majority support against the dictatorship, but the dictatorship crushed them because the US and its allies allowed them to, on the calculation that a successful Shia rebellion would increase Iranian influence in Iraq. Similarly the Barack Obama administration is wary of supporting rebels, some of whom, such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have been allies of Al Qaeda.
The rebels are mostly not LIFG. If we don’t back them the likelihood is they will be massacred just like Shia rebels and civilians in the south of Iraq were in 1991. It’s right to be uncertain of reports based on past propaganda; and right to remember the ulterior motives of most governments, but we know from Gaddafi’s past practice that many who criticised him will be killed in public hangings or private disappearances if his forces win.
Sunday, 13 March 2011
EU support for Arab rebels is shamefully late
[This is the headline over an article by Nick Cohen in today's edition of The Observer. On the subject of Libya and Megrahi, it reads as follows:]
Europeans did not investigate Arab suffering, because they did not believe they had a democratic duty to help it end. To add obfuscation to indifference, they could not admit their accommodation with autocracy honestly. Instead, the left pretended criticism of intolerable regimes was cultural imperialism; an "orientalist" interference in the affairs of "the other". The right hymned the virtues of "stability" and "strong rulers". (...)
Meanwhile the British know that BP lobbied Gordon Brown to secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber. With luck, we may learn more if the rebels can reverse their defeats, and open the secret police archives in Tripoli. Those files may also explain why Silvio Berlusconi felt it necessary to corral 500 "hostesses" and "escorts", and send the perplexed ladies to hear Gaddafi read from the Koran at the Libyan ambassador's Rome residence.
However, readers who see corruption as a universal explanation should take a deep breath and remember Humbert Wolfe's line:
"You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to."
Most of the apologists for dictatorship do not need bribes, whether they are Foreign Office Arabists, Little England columnists for the Tory press or the Livingstone/Galloway breed of brutal leftist. They will apologise when there is no prospect of profit for them. The Scottish Nationalist party released Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, not Labour, and no one has produced evidence that money made it hand Gaddafi a propaganda coup before Scottish appeal judges had ruled on al-Megrahi's guilt. Instead of looking like a bought man, Alex Salmond [RB: this should read Kenny MacAskill] posed as a tartan Che Guevara, who was defying the Yankee oppressors by freeing a criminal convicted of destroying a Pan Am plane and all its passengers and crew. [RB: Defying the Yankee oppressors, forsooth! Kenny MacAskill's principal stated reason for denying prisoner transfer was his (correct) belief that an obligation that Megrahi's sentence would be served in the UK had been undertaken towards the US and other countries, prior to devolution, by the UK government. Not much sign of defiance there.]
I guess that Salmond is typical and a majority of Europeans believe Libya is a distant land, whose affairs have nothing to do with us. (...)
Europeans did not investigate Arab suffering, because they did not believe they had a democratic duty to help it end. To add obfuscation to indifference, they could not admit their accommodation with autocracy honestly. Instead, the left pretended criticism of intolerable regimes was cultural imperialism; an "orientalist" interference in the affairs of "the other". The right hymned the virtues of "stability" and "strong rulers". (...)
Meanwhile the British know that BP lobbied Gordon Brown to secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber. With luck, we may learn more if the rebels can reverse their defeats, and open the secret police archives in Tripoli. Those files may also explain why Silvio Berlusconi felt it necessary to corral 500 "hostesses" and "escorts", and send the perplexed ladies to hear Gaddafi read from the Koran at the Libyan ambassador's Rome residence.
However, readers who see corruption as a universal explanation should take a deep breath and remember Humbert Wolfe's line:
"You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to."
Most of the apologists for dictatorship do not need bribes, whether they are Foreign Office Arabists, Little England columnists for the Tory press or the Livingstone/Galloway breed of brutal leftist. They will apologise when there is no prospect of profit for them. The Scottish Nationalist party released Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, not Labour, and no one has produced evidence that money made it hand Gaddafi a propaganda coup before Scottish appeal judges had ruled on al-Megrahi's guilt. Instead of looking like a bought man, Alex Salmond [RB: this should read Kenny MacAskill] posed as a tartan Che Guevara, who was defying the Yankee oppressors by freeing a criminal convicted of destroying a Pan Am plane and all its passengers and crew. [RB: Defying the Yankee oppressors, forsooth! Kenny MacAskill's principal stated reason for denying prisoner transfer was his (correct) belief that an obligation that Megrahi's sentence would be served in the UK had been undertaken towards the US and other countries, prior to devolution, by the UK government. Not much sign of defiance there.]
I guess that Salmond is typical and a majority of Europeans believe Libya is a distant land, whose affairs have nothing to do with us. (...)
Friday, 11 March 2011
Will any aspect of the Lockerbie affair be an election issue?
In his column headlined What else can the SNP do to claw back votes? in yesterday's edition of The Herald, Iain Macwhirter wrote: "As for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi – the issue that some commentators said could lose the SNP the election – well the boot is now on the other foot following the revelations about Gordon Brown’s dealings with Colonel Gaddafi."
It is probably true to say that the release of Megrahi will not be a vote loser for the SNP. But is it possible that the attitude of Scottish political parties to the question of an inquiry into the circumstances of his conviction could become an issue in the election? Or is the general public perception now that, because Libyan politicians jockeying for position in that country are lining up to say that Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing, the issue of whether one particular Libyan was properly convicted by a Scottish court of the murder of 270 people is a matter of no particular concern or importance?
It is probably true to say that the release of Megrahi will not be a vote loser for the SNP. But is it possible that the attitude of Scottish political parties to the question of an inquiry into the circumstances of his conviction could become an issue in the election? Or is the general public perception now that, because Libyan politicians jockeying for position in that country are lining up to say that Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing, the issue of whether one particular Libyan was properly convicted by a Scottish court of the murder of 270 people is a matter of no particular concern or importance?
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
New revelation over Lockerbie air tragedy
[This is the headline over an editorial in today's edition of the Maltese newspaper, The Times. It reads in part:]
A new revelation about the downing of the Pan Am 103 that killed 270 people over Lockerbie in 1988 would have had far more news coverage than it did had Muammar Gaddafi not opted to turn on his own people in an uprising that is threatening to further undermine peace and security in the Mediterranean.
When the Gaddafi regime’s Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, stepped down a few days ago he was reported telling a Swedish tabloid he had proof the Libyan leader had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. The problem is he did not describe the proof but, according to The Sunday Times (of London), the man convicted of the bombing, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, had warned Col Gaddafi he would “reveal everything” about the downing of the airliner unless he was rescued from the Scottish prison where he was being held.
The story, which is, of course, of direct interest to Malta because the bomb that killed the passengers was said to have started its journey from the airport here – a claim the government has consistently strongly denied – once again opens wide the whole debate over who actually ordered the downing of the aircraft, the motive behind the order and the real perpetrator of the heinous crime. There are analysts who still believe the Pan Am was downed by a Palestinian faction acting in concert with Iran. (...)
It is very important now for the former Libyan Justice Minister to come out with the evidence of the claim he made, if he has any, because if he does not, it would remain just an allegation. Not that Col Gaddafi now needs an allegation of this sort to tarnish his image; his determination to crush his own people for demanding freedom from tyranny is more than enough to stir deep revulsion among the international community, which has unequivocally called for his stepping down.
Even so, the Lockerbie story has not been concluded yet and, with the situation now being so uncertain, it would seem unlikely it would be picked up again any time soon.
A new revelation about the downing of the Pan Am 103 that killed 270 people over Lockerbie in 1988 would have had far more news coverage than it did had Muammar Gaddafi not opted to turn on his own people in an uprising that is threatening to further undermine peace and security in the Mediterranean.
When the Gaddafi regime’s Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, stepped down a few days ago he was reported telling a Swedish tabloid he had proof the Libyan leader had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. The problem is he did not describe the proof but, according to The Sunday Times (of London), the man convicted of the bombing, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, had warned Col Gaddafi he would “reveal everything” about the downing of the airliner unless he was rescued from the Scottish prison where he was being held.
The story, which is, of course, of direct interest to Malta because the bomb that killed the passengers was said to have started its journey from the airport here – a claim the government has consistently strongly denied – once again opens wide the whole debate over who actually ordered the downing of the aircraft, the motive behind the order and the real perpetrator of the heinous crime. There are analysts who still believe the Pan Am was downed by a Palestinian faction acting in concert with Iran. (...)
It is very important now for the former Libyan Justice Minister to come out with the evidence of the claim he made, if he has any, because if he does not, it would remain just an allegation. Not that Col Gaddafi now needs an allegation of this sort to tarnish his image; his determination to crush his own people for demanding freedom from tyranny is more than enough to stir deep revulsion among the international community, which has unequivocally called for his stepping down.
Even so, the Lockerbie story has not been concluded yet and, with the situation now being so uncertain, it would seem unlikely it would be picked up again any time soon.
'No question' Gadhafi ordered Pan Am bombing, ex-CIA official says
[This is the headline over a report on the MSNBC News website on 7 March. It reads in part:]
A former top CIA official who helped oversee the agency’s investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, tells NBC News there is "no doubt" that Moammar Gadhafi personally approved the bombing.
"There are two things that you can take to the bank," said Frank Anderson, who served as the agency's Near East affairs chief between 1991 and his retirement in 1995. "The first one is, Pan Am 103 was perpetrated by agents of the Libyan government. And the second thing is, that could not have happened without Moammar Gadhafi's knowledge and consent.
"There is no question in my mind that Moammar Gadhafi authorized the bombing of Pan Am 103." (...)
Anderson acknowledged that the CIA never had direct evidence tying Gadhafi to the bombing. But during Anderson's tenure as chief of the CIA's Near East affairs division U.S. and British officials were able to wrap up an investigation that uncovered forensic and other evidence linking the planting of the bomb to Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer.
While there have long been suspicions of Gadhafi's involvement, Anderson has particular credibility on the issue. As one of the CIA's top experts on Libya — he had served as a case officer in Tripoli in the early 1970s after Gadhafi first came to power — Anderson dismissed the possibility that Megrahi could have been acting as a "rogue" agent without the knowledge of the regime's top leader. By the time of the bombing, he said, Gadhafi had so consolidated his hold over the regime that there was "absolutely no way" for Libyan intelligence officials to have carried out the bombing without the dictator's authorization.
Geopolitical and other realities led U.S. officials to handle the matter as a criminal case, resulting in a federal indictment of Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, rather than with military force, noted Anderson, who now serves as the president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based think tank. President Ronald Reagan ordered a bombing of Libya in 1986 after U.S. officials linked Libya's intelligence service to an earlier terrorism bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen.
In a separate interview, Richard Marquise, who was the chief FBI agent on the Lockerbie case, said he and other bureau officials always assumed that senior Libyan officials were complicit in blowing up the aircraft, but never had enough evidence to build a case against them.
When Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, were indicted by a federal grand jury in 1991, FBI officials were eager to convict them in a U.S. court – and then get them to finger the higher level officials who gave them their orders, said Marquise. Some evidence against higher level Libyan intelligence officials had surfaced in the course of the probe, said Marquise. He even considered seeking "material witness" warrants that would authorize FBI agents to apprehend the suspects and force them to testify.
"We always hoped that had we gotten (access to Megrahi and Fhimah) they would start to roll," said Marquise. "There was always an expectation that we would get further up the chain."
But much to the frustration of U.S. officials, that never happened. As part of a deal to get the Libyans to turn over Megrahi and Fhimah, the U.S. agreed to allow them to be tried in Scotland — and Scottish officials agreed to restrict the case only to them, preventing the disclosure of any evidence that might point to higher-ups. (...)
[Posted to the blog from Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of South Africa, indeed the world.]
A former top CIA official who helped oversee the agency’s investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, tells NBC News there is "no doubt" that Moammar Gadhafi personally approved the bombing.
"There are two things that you can take to the bank," said Frank Anderson, who served as the agency's Near East affairs chief between 1991 and his retirement in 1995. "The first one is, Pan Am 103 was perpetrated by agents of the Libyan government. And the second thing is, that could not have happened without Moammar Gadhafi's knowledge and consent.
"There is no question in my mind that Moammar Gadhafi authorized the bombing of Pan Am 103." (...)
Anderson acknowledged that the CIA never had direct evidence tying Gadhafi to the bombing. But during Anderson's tenure as chief of the CIA's Near East affairs division U.S. and British officials were able to wrap up an investigation that uncovered forensic and other evidence linking the planting of the bomb to Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer.
While there have long been suspicions of Gadhafi's involvement, Anderson has particular credibility on the issue. As one of the CIA's top experts on Libya — he had served as a case officer in Tripoli in the early 1970s after Gadhafi first came to power — Anderson dismissed the possibility that Megrahi could have been acting as a "rogue" agent without the knowledge of the regime's top leader. By the time of the bombing, he said, Gadhafi had so consolidated his hold over the regime that there was "absolutely no way" for Libyan intelligence officials to have carried out the bombing without the dictator's authorization.
Geopolitical and other realities led U.S. officials to handle the matter as a criminal case, resulting in a federal indictment of Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, rather than with military force, noted Anderson, who now serves as the president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based think tank. President Ronald Reagan ordered a bombing of Libya in 1986 after U.S. officials linked Libya's intelligence service to an earlier terrorism bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen.
In a separate interview, Richard Marquise, who was the chief FBI agent on the Lockerbie case, said he and other bureau officials always assumed that senior Libyan officials were complicit in blowing up the aircraft, but never had enough evidence to build a case against them.
When Megrahi and an alleged co-conspirator, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, were indicted by a federal grand jury in 1991, FBI officials were eager to convict them in a U.S. court – and then get them to finger the higher level officials who gave them their orders, said Marquise. Some evidence against higher level Libyan intelligence officials had surfaced in the course of the probe, said Marquise. He even considered seeking "material witness" warrants that would authorize FBI agents to apprehend the suspects and force them to testify.
"We always hoped that had we gotten (access to Megrahi and Fhimah) they would start to roll," said Marquise. "There was always an expectation that we would get further up the chain."
But much to the frustration of U.S. officials, that never happened. As part of a deal to get the Libyans to turn over Megrahi and Fhimah, the U.S. agreed to allow them to be tried in Scotland — and Scottish officials agreed to restrict the case only to them, preventing the disclosure of any evidence that might point to higher-ups. (...)
[Posted to the blog from Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of South Africa, indeed the world.]
Monday, 7 March 2011
Who was the Lockerbie bomber?
[This is the headline over an article by Stephen Blease in today's edition of the News & Star, a newspaper circulating in the Carlisle area. It reads as follows:]
With Libya in the news again, there has been more argument over the compassionate release of Abelbaset al-Megrahi , the man accused of the Lockerbie bombing.
We might ask whether a mass murderer deserves compassion. But is al-Megrahi a mass murderer?
Not everyone thinks so. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was one of the 270 people killed, doesn’t think Libya was even involved. And Hans Koechler, an observer at the trial, called al-Megrahi’s treatment “a spectacular miscarriage of justice”.
Consider these facts. In July 1988, six months before the Lockerbie attack, the US shot down an Iranian airbus, killing 290 people. The Ayatollah Khomeini vowed that “vengeance would rein down from the skies”.
Iranian officials then met a terrorist group whose favoured tactic was to place explosives inside radio cassette players with timers triggered by air pressure. The remains of radio cassette players were found among the wreckage.
At the time, nobody mentioned Libya. It was only in 1991 during the first Gulf War – when Britain and America wanted Iran on side – that Libya was first accused.
So can we really say al-Megrahi did it beyond reasonable doubt?
With Libya in the news again, there has been more argument over the compassionate release of Abelbaset al-Megrahi , the man accused of the Lockerbie bombing.
We might ask whether a mass murderer deserves compassion. But is al-Megrahi a mass murderer?
Not everyone thinks so. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was one of the 270 people killed, doesn’t think Libya was even involved. And Hans Koechler, an observer at the trial, called al-Megrahi’s treatment “a spectacular miscarriage of justice”.
Consider these facts. In July 1988, six months before the Lockerbie attack, the US shot down an Iranian airbus, killing 290 people. The Ayatollah Khomeini vowed that “vengeance would rein down from the skies”.
Iranian officials then met a terrorist group whose favoured tactic was to place explosives inside radio cassette players with timers triggered by air pressure. The remains of radio cassette players were found among the wreckage.
At the time, nobody mentioned Libya. It was only in 1991 during the first Gulf War – when Britain and America wanted Iran on side – that Libya was first accused.
So can we really say al-Megrahi did it beyond reasonable doubt?
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