The Blair-Gaddafi deal in the desert

[It was on this date in 2007 that the “deal in the desert” was concluded between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi at a meeting in Sirte. This was embodied in a “memorandum of understanding” that provided, amongst other things, for a prisoner transfer agreement to be drawn up. In later years UK Government ministers, particularly Justice Secretary Jack Straw, sought to argue either (i) that the prisoner transfer element of the deal was not intended to apply to Abdelbaset Megrahi or (ii) that if it was intended to cover him, all parties appreciated that the decision on transfer would be one for the Scottish Government not the UK Government. Here is what I wrote about that on this blog:]

According to Jack Straw "the Libyans understood that the discretion in respect of any PTA application rested with the Scottish Executive." This is not so. In meetings that I had with Libyan officials at the highest level shortly after the "deal in the desert" it was abundantly clear that the Libyans believed that the UK Government could order the transfer of Mr Megrahi and that they were prepared to do so. When I told them that the relevant powers rested with the Scottish -- not the UK -- Government, they simply did not believe me. When they eventually realised that I had been correct, their anger and disgust with the UK Government was palpable. As I have said elsewhere:

"The memorandum of understanding regarding prisoner transfer that Tony Blair entered into in the course of the "deal in the desert" in May 2007, and which paved the way for the formal prisoner transfer agreement, was intended by both sides to lead to the rapid return of Mr Megrahi to his homeland. This was the clear understanding of Libyan officials involved in the negotiations and to whom I have spoken.

"It was only after the memorandum of understanding was concluded that [it belatedly sunk in] that the decision on repatriation of this particular prisoner was a matter not for Westminster and Whitehall but for the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh, and that government had just come into the hands of the Scottish National Party and so could no longer be expected supinely to follow the UK Labour Government's wishes. That was when the understanding between the UK Government and the Libyan Government started to unravel, to the considerable annoyance and distress of the Libyans, who had been led to believe that repatriation under the PTA was only months away.

“Among the Libyan officials with whom I discussed this matter at the time were Abdulati al-Obeidi, Moussa Koussa and Abdel Rahman Shalgam.”

Britain and US in rift over Libyan Lockerbie apology

[This is the headline over an article by Lucy Adams published in The Sunday Times on this date in 2002:]

Officials in London and Tripoli have agreed the wording of an admission of responsibility for the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people died.

However the draft statement has been rejected by the American government because it falls short of an unconditional admission of guilt. It also fails to recognise the legitimacy of the Scottish court in the Netherlands which convicted Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who is now serving at least 20 years in Barlinnie prison.

Washington’s rejection of the draft apology will delay the removal of Libya from the US government’s blacklist of countries that sponsor terrorism, and the payment of compensation to the victims’ families by the Libyan government.

Lawyers for Colonel Muammar Muhammad al-Gadaffi’s government have said that up to £1.3m could be withheld from each family until it is removed from the list and trade sanctions, in force for the past 16 years, are lifted.

The apology was agreed in London by British officials at meetings with the Libyan intelligence official Musa Kusah and Muhammad al-Zuway, the Libyan ambassador to Britain.

It was drafted with the help of Professor Robert Black, the Scottish legal expert who was instrumental in establishing the Scottish trial on Dutch soil at Camp Zeist. It states: “Megrahi was convicted of the bombing of Pan Am 103 and his conviction was upheld on appeal.

“He is a Libyan citizen and was an employee of a state enterprise. The Libyan government accepts state responsibility for the consequences of that conviction because he was a Libyan citizen and state employee.”

One senior Libyan source said: “As far as an admission of responsibility is concerned, the furthest we are prepared to go is acceptance that under international law there is state responsibility for the actings of citizens and employees of state enterprises, and acknowledgment that a Libyan citizen and employee of a state enterprise has been convicted in a judicial process to which we signed up but the outcome of which we will not accept as establishing the truth.”

Black, a professor of law at Edinburgh University, said: “The form of the words is not an outright apology. They want to make it an admission of responsibility not guilt.”

Last August Mike O’Brien, foreign office minister of state for Middle East affairs, became the first British minister to visit Libya in almost 20 years.

At the meeting with O’Brien in Tripoli Abdurrahman Shalgam, Libya’s foreign minister, was reported to have said: “Regarding compensation, as a principle, yes, we are going to do something on that topic. Regarding responsibility, we are discussing this issue.”

Kreindler and Kreindler, the legal firm representing the families of American victims, said Gadaffi had agreed to pay up to £1.85 billion in compensation. However, the payments depend on the lifting of trade sanctions.

Libya says it 'bought peace' with Lockerbie deal

[This is the headline over a report published on the South African Mail & Guardian website on this date in 2004. It reads in part:]

Libya’s Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem has said that Libya only agreed to pay compensation for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing to “buy peace”, according to a BBC interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Ghanem also told BBC radio’s flagship Today programme there was no evidence that a Libyan was responsible for the shooting of a British policewoman 20 years ago, an event which led to London breaking off diplomatic relations with Tripoli.

Libya formally accepted responsibility in August 2003 for the bombing of New York-bound Flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, southwest Scotland, and agreed to pay $2,7-billion in compensation to families of the 270 victims.

The following month the United Nations Security Council voted to lift sanctions against Libya.

“We thought it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed to compensation,” Ghanem said.

“Therefore we said, ‘Let us buy peace, let us put the whole case behind us and let us look forward’,” he added.

His comments could damage the former pariah state’s relations with Britain which have improved dramatically since Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi announced in December that his country had given up the bid to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

Tripoli and London formally re-established diplomatic relations in 1999. (...)

In a sign that Libya was slowly being accepted back into the international fold, it was announced during Shalgam’s visit that British Prime Minister Tony Blair would visit Gadaffi “as soon as convenient”.

No date was fixed for the meeting and the British Foreign Office was unable to confirm in which country such a meeting might take place. Ghanem said a Blair visit to Libya would be important because he could see the country for himself rather than hearing about it from others. The British prime minister would be made very welcome, he added.

He also said Gadaffi would consider visiting Britain if he was invited.

Ghanem called for the United States, which has existing sanctions against Libya, to take his country off its list of states sponsoring terrorism.

[RB: A transcript of the full interview can be read here.]