Delaying tactics, errors and malpractices

[On this date in 2009, the International Progress Organization  issued a press release about a forthcoming article by Professor Hans Köchler, one of the United Nations observers at the Lockerbie trial. It reads as follows:]

"The Lockerbie Trial and the Rule of Law"

Criminal Justice in the Framework of International Power Politics

In an article for the forthcoming issue of the National Law School of India Review (NLSIR), the international observer appointed by the United Nations at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands, Dr Hans Köchler, has summarized his evaluation of the handling of the Lockerbie case by the Scottish and British authorities.

In the article, written upon invitation by the Student Advocate Committee of the National Law School of India (Bangalore), Köchler deals with the delaying tactics and the apparent strategy of the political establishment and judicial authorities to cover up the errors and malpractices that have led to a situation in which, ten years after the beginning of the trial and seven years after the end of the first appeal proceedings, still no plausible explanation is (officially) available for the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

The article concludes with a quote from Köchler's keynote speech at the Law Awards of Scotland 2008, which highlights the dilemma of the new appeal proceedings that are eventually to begin in April 2009:

Whether those in public office like it or not, the Lockerbie trial has become a test case for the criminal justice system of Scotland. At the same time, it has become an exemplary case on a global scale - its handling will demonstrate whether a domestic system of criminal justice can resist the dictates of international power politics or simply becomes dysfunctional as soon as "supreme state interests" interfere with the imperatives of justice.

[RB: The full text of Professor Köchler’s important article can be read here.]

Where, oh where, is the evidence that Gaddafi ordered Lockerbie?

[The following are questions and answers as recorded in House of Commons Hansard for this date in 2012:]

Mr [Denis] MacShane: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to ensure that the Lord Advocate's letter to the Libyan Government on Lockerbie is acted upon. [98285]

Alistair Burt [Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs]: Our ambassador in Libya has encouraged the Libyan authorities to respond to the Lord Advocate's letter requesting Libyan co-operation with the Lockerbie investigation under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the UK and Libya when he handed the letter over to the Libyan Foreign Minister on 21 February. The Government will continue to press the Libyan Transitional Government for a positive and timely response.

Mr MacShane: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will ask the Libyan Government to publish all documents, letters, records of meetings and other material relating to the Lockerbie bombing. [98286]

Alistair Burt: The Government will continue to urge the Libyan Transitional Government to co-operate with the Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary's open investigation into the Lockerbie bombing, including allowing access to information and individuals relevant to their investigation.

[RB: Since the statement in February 2011 by former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil that Gaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing, increasingly desperate calls have been made for the Libyan authorities to supply the documentary or other evidence demonstrating this. No evidence has been forthcoming.]

Libya's acceptance of responsibility

[Twelve years ago today Libya reached agreement with the United Kingdom and the United States over the terms of its “acceptance of responsibility” for the Lockerbie bombing and the compensation payable to the families of those who died. The following report is taken from The Guardian website:]

Libya today reached agreement with the United States and Britain to accept civil responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and compensate victims' relatives, a source close to the talks said.

"History is in the making. A deal could be announced at any moment," the source told the Reuters news agency after US, British and Libyan officials met in London.

Under the arrangement, Libya would compensate families of the 259 passengers and crew killed in the mid-air explosion of the Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 and the 11 people killed on the ground.

Tripoli would pay up to £6.2m per victim into a special trust account in return for a series of steps to remove sanctions against it, the source said.

That would make the total value of the settlement roughly £1.68bn if all conditions were met.

The deal would end a lingering dispute between the west and an Arab state shortly before a likely US-led war against Iraq.

A Libyan intelligence agent, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was convicted of the crime by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.

[A report on the BBC News website was somewhat more cautious:]

Further talks have taken place aimed at securing agreement on a compensation deal for relatives of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

The talks in London - the latest in a series - between Britain, the United States and Libya have been aimed at ending UN sanctions imposed on Libya following the atrocity.

The London talks were attended by William Burns, a key member of the US State Department, with responsibility for Middle Eastern Affairs. (...)

United Nations sanctions, currently suspended, can only be lifted completely when Libya complies with four key demands.

Among these is adequate compensation and a deal has already been worked out under which a total of $2.7bn would be paid to relatives of those who died, representing $10m per victim.

But another demand - that Libya accepts responsibility for the atrocity - has so far proved to be a stumbling block.

It is understood Britain agreed the wording of a Libyan statement but the Americans were unhappy.

If an agreement is reached, relatives from both the UK and the US will study its wording.

[The terms ultimately agreed for Libya’s “acceptance of responsibility” can be read here.]

Blair and Gaddafi

[The Daily Mail is currently publishing extracts from Blair Inc: The Man Behind The Mask by Francis Beckett, David Hencke and Nick Kochan. Here is part of yesterday’s instalment:]

The confusion Blair creates with his business methods is typified by his contacts with the Libyan dictator, Colonel Gaddafi — as Tim Collins, billionaire founder of a Wall Street investment company and now an ex-friend of the former Prime Minister, discovered to his disgust and dismay.

In April 2009, two years after leaving office, Blair was holding secret talks with Gaddafi about the possible release from prison in the United Kingdom of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

Libya was threatening to cut all business links if Megrahi stayed in a British jail.

Blair, who flew to Libya at Gaddafi’s expense — and in Gaddafi’s private jet — invited Collins along.

Collins thought he was going in his capacity as a trustee of Blair’s Faith Foundation to promote a campaign for anti-mosquito nets for children in Africa.

When he got there, he found Gaddafi eager to discuss investment to build beach resorts on the Libyan coast.

Mosquito nets were barely mentioned. (...)

Whatever the truth, Collins cringed at Blair’s deferential attitude towards the dictator.

He himself thought Gaddafi quite mad and refused to do business with him.

Blair, however, seems to have had no qualms about an ever closer association with Gaddafi.

In an interview in 2010, a Gaddafi associate acknowledged that the dictator ‘talks regularly to Blair as a friend’ and ‘consults him on many issues.’

Papers found in Tripoli after Gaddafi’s overthrow in 2011 show that Blair held at least six private meetings with him in the three years after he left No 10 Downing Street.

Blair’s involvement with Libya goes back to his days as Prime Minister, when he spotted the considerable commercial benefits to be gained from access to Libya’s colossal reserves of oil and gas, as well as huge opportunities for foreign firms to renew its ancient infrastructure.

In seeking to take advantage of this, he was ably assisted by Sir Mark Allen, a former British spy who spent much of his operational career in the Middle East. He was head of MI6’s counter-terrorism unit, which is alleged to have colluded in the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to torture terror suspects in Libya.

In 2004 his bid to become head of MI6 failed and he retired from public service.

But Prime Minister Blair cleared him to take work immediately as a special adviser for the oil giant BP, despite rules that would normally have prevented a former civil servant from taking money from a large corporation so soon after retirement.

As Blair’s premiership was coming to an end in 2007, Allen used his contacts in both the UK and Libya to resolve issues surrounding the release of Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi.

This in turn enabled a deal in which BP announced it would return to operations in Libya after a 30-year absence.

Libya under Gaddafi turned out to be a natural place for Blair to exercise his entrepreneurial talent.

On behalf of British companies, he courted the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and the National Oil Corporation (NOC).

Both the LIA and the NOC were massive and corrupt institutions with fabulous wealth. Regime figures describe Blair lobbying extensively for clients, and in return he intervened personally to aid the Gaddafi clan on several occasions.

He tried to persuade Oxford University to give a place to Saif, Gaddafi’s son, and is thought to have been instrumental in the eventual decision of the LSE to admit him as a PhD student.

His relationship with Gaddafi continued right up to the dictator’s fall.

During the Libyan Revolution, Blair telephoned Gaddafi twice on February 27, 2011, reportedly to ask him to stop the violent crackdown on his opponents.

Gaddafi might reasonably have expected a little help at the time of his greatest need, but that was the last time the two spoke, and a few weeks later Gaddafi was captured and slaughtered.

Perhaps Blair shed a tear for his old chum. Then again, perhaps he didn’t.

Libya, UTA 772 and Pan Am 103

[On this date in 1999 a French court convicted in absentia six Libyans, including Abdullah al-Senussi, for the bombing of UTA flight 772 over Niger and the murder of the 170 passengers and crew. A BBC News report contains the following:]

Colonel Gaddafi's brother-in-law and five other Libyans have been found guilty of bombing a French airliner.

They were sentenced to life in prison by a special court in Paris. However, they were tried in absentia and will be allowed another hearing if they are ever taken into French custody.

The aircraft, a DC-10 operated by the French airline UTA, crashed in Niger in September 1989, killing all 170 people on board. Debris was scattered over hundreds of kilometres in the Sahara desert.

Libya helped France during part of the investigation but did not offer full co-operation and refused to hand over the suspects. (...)

Prosecutors said a package containing a bomb had been planted on a young Congolese with links to Libyan agents in the Congolese capital Brazzaville, from where the UTA flight to Paris had set off.

The prosecution said the six had been working for the Libyan secret service, which is also accused of bombing Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. (...)

Correspondents have highlighted differences between France's handling of the case and the way the UK and US Governments have sought the extradition of those accused of the Lockerbie bombing.

Evidence against the UTA suspects is said to be much stronger than that against the two Lockerbie suspects.

Libya has been under UN sanctions since 1992 in connection with the UTA and Pan Am bombs.

[RB: As with Pan Am 103, Libya eventually paid compensation to the families of those who died on UTA 772. The most detailed account of the UTA 772 bombing and its relationship to Lockerbie is to be found here on The Masonic Verses website.]

Lockerbie: the CIA drug-running scenario

[On this date in 2011, Susan Lindauer’s article Lockerbie Diary: Gadhaffi, Fall Guy for CIA Drug Running was published on the Scoop website. The following are excerpts:]

From May 1995 until March 2003, I performed as a back channel to Tripoli and Baghdad, supervised by my CIA handler, Dr Richard Fuisz, who claimed from day one to know the origins of the Lockerbie conspiracy and the identity of the terrorists. http://issuepedia.org/1998-12-04_Susan_Lindauer_Deposition He swore that no Libyan participated in the attack.

Armed with that assurance, our team started talks with Libya's diplomats for the Lockerbie Trial, and I attended over 150 meetings at the Libyan Embassy in New York. After the hand over of Libya's two accused men, our team engaged in a concerted fight to gain permission for Dr. Fuisz to give a deposition about his primary knowledge of the conspiracy, during the Lockerbie Trial In a surprise twist, the US Federal Judge in Alexandria, Virginia imposed a double seal on a crucial portion of Dr Fuisz's deposition. The double seal can only be opened by a Scottish judge. In my opinion, that should be a priority, as testimony hidden by the double seal maps out the whole Lockerbie conspiracy. Most significantly, it identifies 11 terrorists involved in the attack. Dr Fuisz's testimony could put the whole matter to rest forever.

There's good reason for my confidence. Much to my surprise, during the Lockerbie talks, Dr Fuisz's allegations of CIA opium running in Lebanon received unusual corroboration. One day, as I left the office of Senator Carol Moseley-Braun on my lunch break, an older spook caught up with me in front of the US Supreme Court. From out of nowhere, he stepped in my path and invited me to lunch. With extraordinary candor, he debriefed me as to what motivated the CIA's actions. I remember it as one battle-hardened old spook sharing the perils of fieldwork with a gung ho young Asset, anxious to get started on great adventures.

It was a morality tale for sure. According to him, the CIA infiltrated opium and heroin trafficking in Lebanon as part of a crisis operation to rescue AP reporter Terry Anderson and 11 other American and British hostages in Beirut, including CNN bureau chief Jeremy Levin and Anglican envoy Terry Waite. The hostage crisis was a legitimate CIA concern. The CIA Station Chief of Beirut, William Buckley, was also kidnapped by Islamic Jihad and brutally tortured to death, his body dumped in the street in front of CIA headquarters. The rescue was protracted and complicated by Lebanon's Civil War—ultimately, Terry Anderson's captivity lasted seven years. Many of the hostages suffered beatings, solitary confinement chained to the floor, and mock executions.

The older spook who refused to identify himself swore that the CIA considered it urgently necessary to try every possibility for recovering the hostages. The concept of infiltration into criminal networks cuts to the murky nature of intelligence itself. Drug enforcement frequently rely on the same strategies. Where the CIA went far wrong was in pocketing some of those heroin profits for itself along the way. The dirty little secret is that the CIA continued to take a percentage cut of opium and heroin production out of Lebanon well into the 1990s.

As for the hostage rescue itself, considering the operation took years to accomplish, it's always been whispered that a corrupted CIA officer enjoying those opium profits might have swallowed reports on the hostages' locations, or otherwise diverted his team in order to protect his narcotics income.

That appears to have become a serious fear at the time, among other US officers jointly involved in the rescue.

In December 1988, infuriated Defense Intelligence agents issued a formal protest, exposing CIA complicity in Middle East heroin trafficking. When teams from both agencies got summoned back to Washington to attend an internal hearing, they boarded Pan Am 103. A wing of militant Hezbollah led by Ahmed Jibril, his nephew Abu Elias, Abu Talb and Abu Nidal took out both teams in order to protect their lucrative cartel.

Classified Defense Intelligence records show that Jibril and Talb had been toying with a conspiracy to bomb a US airplane during the 1988 Christmas holidays anyway. They planned to bomb a US airliner in revenge for the USS Vincennes, which shot down an Iranian commercial airliner loaded with Hajiis returning from Mecca in July, 1988. However the Defense Intelligence threat to expose their heroin network put the bombing plan into action. Islamic Jihad's ability to discover actionable intelligence on the flight schedules would definitely confirm that somebody at CIA was operating as a double agent, keeping Islamic Jihad a step ahead of the rescue efforts.

That's the dirty truth about Lockerbie. It ain't nothing like you've been told. (...)

But the bottom line is that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing of Pan Am 103, which exploded over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland. We should care about Lockerbie because of the serious problem that it exposed. Opium trafficking out of the Bekaa Valley provides a major source for global heroin production. In turn, the global pipeline of narco-dollars keep militant operations alive world-wide from the Middle East to Indonesia, Colombia, Burma and the Far East.

More international pressure on UK & USA over Lockerbie trial intransigence

[On this date in 1998 The Pan Am 103 Crash Website edited by Safia Aoude carried a report on a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to consider renewing sanctions against Libya. The report reads in part:]

The Security Council on Friday regrettably retained without change the sanctions imposed on Libya since 1992 for failing to hand over two suspects in the 1988 midair bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

But, at the request of Arab and African countries, council members agreed during private consultations earlier this week to hold a full-scale debate on March 20 on the Libya sanctions in light of a recent World Court decision. Last Friday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled it had jurisdiction to hear Libyan arguments that the 1971 Montreal civil aviation convention allows the suspects to be put on trial in Libya and that Britain and the United States are acting unlawfully in insisting on their extradition to one or other of those countries.

London and Washington played down the ruling as a technicality. Tripoli called it a victory and Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar Gaddafi, in a speech last Monday, urged the Security Council to suspend the sanctions. Despite support for Libya among some council members, the sanctions remain in force unless the council takes a specific decision to ease them. Such a resolution would need a minimum of nine votes to be adopted and could be vetoed by the United States and Britain, as permanent council members.

Libya, backed by Arab, African and many other nonaligned countries, has long been pressing for the two suspects to be tried at a so-called neutral venue, saying they could not get a fair trial in Britain or the United States where the two alleged intelligence agents have both been indicted.

Friday's closed-door review of the sanctions, which include an arms and air embargo and the downgrading of diplomatic relations, was the 18th in a series conducted every 120 days. The initial sanctions were tightened in 1993 with a freeze on some Libyan assets abroad and a ban on some types of equipment used in oil terminals and refineries. But they do not affect oil exports or oil drilling equipment of a certain size and fabrication.

Libyan ambassador Abuzed Dorda spoke of the “strong support for my country from all of the international community” except the United States and Britain. “Libya has no problem with the Security Council and the Security Council has no problem with Libya at all,” he said. “The only problem was between his country and the United States and Britain,” he told reporters. (...)

China's deputy UN representative Sheng Guofang expressed regret that “the various sides have still yet to reach consensus” and hoped the council would be able to “take a step forward on this issue.” “China does not favor any kind of sanction against any country, including sanctions on Libya,” he said, expressing support for options put forward by the Arab League and the Organization of African Unity for a trial at a neutral venue.

[A further report reads as follows:]

The Security Council decided on Thursday to hold a full-fledged debate on March 20 on sanctions imposed on Libya since 1992 in light of a recent world court ruling.

But Britain and the United States rejected combining the public meeting, requested by Arab and African states, with the council’s periodic review of sanctions against Libya.

The closed Security Council review went as scheduled on Friday retaining without change the sanctions imposed on Libya since 1992. Friday’s closed-door review of the sanctions, which include an arms and air embargo and the downgrading of diplomatic relations, was the 18th in a series conducted every 120 days.

Libyan ambassador Abuzed Dorda spoke of the “strong support for my country from all of the international community” except the United States and Britain. “Libya has no problem with the Security Council and the Security Council has no problem with Libya at all,” he said. The only problem was between his country and the United States and Britain, he told reporters.

China’s deputy UN representative Sheng Guofang expressed regret that “the various sides have still yet to reach consensus” and hoped the council would be able “to take a step forward on this issue.”

“China does not favour any kind of sanction against any country, including sanctions on Libya,” he said, expressing support for options put forward by the Arab League and the Organization of African Unity for a trial at a neutral venue

Last Friday the Hague-based International Court of Justice ruled it had jurisdiction to hear Libyan arguments that the 1971 Montreal civil aviation convention allows the suspects to be put on trial in Libya and that Britain and the United States are acting unlawfully in insisting on their extradition.

London and Washington have played down the ruling as a technicality but Libya, backed by Arab, African and other nonaligned countries urged the Security Council to suspend the sanctions.

US Senator Robert Menendez 'faces corruption charge'

[This is the headline over a report published today on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]

The US justice department is preparing to bring criminal corruption charges against Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, US media reports say.

The politician from New Jersey is alleged to have used his office to promote the interests of a Democratic donor, in exchange for gifts.

Attorney General Eric Holder has reportedly given prosecutors permission to proceed with charges.

Senator Menendez has labelled the probe a smear campaign.

"I am not going anywhere," he said on Friday at a press conference in New Jersey.

"Let me very clear, very clear. I have always conducted myself appropriately and in accordance with the law."

An official announcement from prosecutors is expected in the coming weeks.

Sen Menendez is one of the highest-ranking Hispanic members of Congress and a former chairman of the Senate's foreign relations committee.

[Senator Menendez has been one of the most high-profile US politicians to intervene in Lockerbie matters. His history in this regard can be followed here.]

Lockerbie analogy drawn about Obama-Netanyahu spat

[The following are excerpts from an article by Allan Gerson (a former US Deputy Assistant Attorney General) headlined The Guts of the Netanyahu-Obama Flare-Up: The White House Versus Congress which was published yesterday in the US edition of the Huffington Post:]

President Obama may be violating Congressional prerogatives in making deals with foreign governments that are unprepared to renounce their allegiance to terrorism. (...)

Congress has a special constitutional interest in this matter. In fulfillment of its prerogatives as the legislative branch it duly passed laws calling on the State Department to assist it in listing foreign governments considered sponsors of terrorism, and it has repeatedly designated Iran as the world's key supporter and sponsor of terrorism, resulting in the death of thousands of Americans as well as huge numbers of foreign nationals. Dealing with any country designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, absent special exemptions, is subject to stringent criminal penalties. This is not to say that the Executive Branch cannot secretly engage in negotiations with states so designated, but it does mean that no deal can be struck with those states that eliminates their subjection to US sanctions unless they are prepared to renounce allegiance to terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Otherwise, it is the Executive Branch that is trampling on the Legislative Branch's legitimate powers.

For example in dealing with Libya, successive US administrations made clear that Libya would first have to renounce terrorism as an instrument of state policy before any agreement could be effectuated that would eliminate US sanctions against Libya imposed after the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988. (...)

Police media relations chief for Pan Am 103 investigation dies

[What follows is taken from an obituary in today’s edition of The Herald:]

Angus Kennedy, who has died aged 71, was a police officer who became known to journalists throughout Scotland as the head of the former Strathclyde Police Press Office; he was the main spokesman for the force for many years.

Joining the City of Glasgow Police in 1964, he was initially posted to G Division, Govan Police Office, before progressing through the ranks to reach the rank of superintendent in charge of the demanding environment of police and media relations. (...)

His distinguished police career was defined by the catastrophic event on 21st December 1988 when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie killing 270 people sparking the largest murder enquiry in British history.

Although it had occurred in Dumfries and Galloway, it was agreed by both police forces that Strathclyde would coordinate the media, which, as it turned out, was on an unprecedented scale as within 24 hours there were more journalists than police officers in the small Scottish town. He did a remarkable job not only keeping the world's media informed but importantly he dealt sensitively and compassionately with the relatives that made the journey to Lockerbie in the days that followed. Many came from the United States grief stricken but understandably anxious to find out what had occurred. Angus Kennedy took it upon himself to keep them fully informed and guided them carefully into the media spotlight when appropriate. Out of this tragedy he formed many lifelong friendships with relatives from home and abroad all of whom remained ever grateful for his guidance, strength and comfort at a time of such personal grief.

In 1989 in recognition of his services to policing, in particular his outstanding handling of the exceptional pressures in the aftermath of Lockerbie, he was awarded the Queen's Police Medal.

International pressure led UK and USA to agree to neutral venue trial

[What follows is an item headed Libya Sanction Hearings Sought in the UN Security Council posted on this date in 1998 on The Pan Am 103 Crash Website:]

Arab and African countries are urging an open Security Council debate to pressure Britain and Washington to ease sanctions imposed on Libya after the 1988 Pan Am bombing. The 15 council members had been scheduled to review -- and presumably renew -- the sanctions for another 120 days this week. Such reviews are routinely done in closed sessions.

But Arab and African members of the Security Council are urging the current president, Abdoulie Momodou Saleh of Gambia, to postpone the review and schedule an open debate, diplomatic sources said Wednesday on condition of anonymity. That would enable any UN member state to join the discussions.

The United States and Britain could block any decision to lift or ease the sanctions, which were imposed in 1992 to pressure Libyan revolutionary leader Moammar Gadhafi to extradite two suspects in the fatal bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The bombing killed 270 people. Still, an open debate would draw attention to calls by the Arab League and the Organization of African Unity to lift the sanctions. Libya has proposed sending the two Libyan suspects to a third country for trial. Washington and London insist they be tried in Scotland or the United States.

But a growing number of council members, including Russia, have urged the council to consider Gadhafi's offer. The use of sanctions as a means of pressuring governments has lost favor among many of the 185 UN member states, in part because they cause suffering among populations who often have little influence on their governments' policies. In an attempt to head off the debate, Britain and the United States have asked UN legal officers for a ruling on whether the review must be completed by the end of the week, the sources said.

If so, there would not be enough time under UN rules to organize an open debate.

[RB: Apart from the Arab League and the Organization of African Unity, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement were losing patience with the intransigence of the United Kingdom and the United States in the face of Libyan willingness to countenance a trial of Megrahi and Fhimah in a neutral country. Here is the text of a communiqué issued on 25 September 1997 at the conclusion of a meeting of Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Heads of Delegation of the Non-Aligned Movement:] 

73. The Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Heads of Delegation reconfirmed the position of the Movement as contained in paragraph 163 of the Final Document of the Eleventh Summit in Cartagena. They expressed concern at the non-acceptance by the three Western countries of the appeals of regional and international organizations and their efforts to reach a peaceful settlement based on the principles of international law. They also affirmed that the measures imposed on Libya are no longer justifiable, and urged the Security Council to expeditiously review the air embargo and the other measures imposed on Libya with a view to lifting them. They further underlined that the escalation of the crisis, the threat to impose additional sanctions and the use of force as a means of conducting relations among States are a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement. They reiterated their support for the proposals submitted jointly by the Organization of African Unity and the League of Arab States, as contained in the declaration of the 65th regular session of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity held in Tripoli from 24-28 February 1997. These proposals are as follows:

Option 1: To hold the trial of the two suspects in a third and neutral country to be determined by the Security Council.

Option 2: To have the two suspects tried by Scottish judges at the International Court of Justice ICJ at the Hague, in accordance with Scottish law.

Option 3: To establish a special criminal tribunal at the ICJ headquarters in the Hague to try the two suspects.

They called for refraining from resorting to the imposition of sanctions unless a real threat to international peace and security exists and only after all other peaceful means for settling the dispute have been exhausted. They also called for the refraining from adopting measures in the economic, financial, transportation and communication fields, due to their serious and inhumane effects on the people and should reflect the views of the General Assembly. The General Assembly is the only forum that reflects the position of all Member states. Where the imposition of sanctions is inevitable, they should be limited in their duration. After which, a decision should be made whether a consensus for their renewal exists and also serious consideration should be given to lift similar sanctions that are in place.

[RB: It was this erosion of international support for continuation of sanctions against Libya that motivated the UK and USA reluctantly to agree to a neutral venue trial in August 1998, some four years and seven months after my proposal had been accepted by the Libyan Government and the suspects’ defence team.]