Lockerbie conspiracies: from A to Z

[What follows is the text of an article published in The Guardian on this date in 1999. Some of the "conspiracies" have since been comprehensively debunked. Others have not:]

Lockerbie conspiracies: from A to Z

A

is for Africa, South

Several pieces of evidence (see H and W) suggest that the authorities knew in advance that the Boeing 747 which blew up over Lockerbie in southern Scotland on December 21 1988 was in danger. The German newspaper Die Zeit claimed that the South African foreign minister, Pik Botha, intended to fly on Pan Am 103 but had been warned off. Mr Botha flew on an earlier flight, Pan Am 101, which, unlike flight 103, had special security checks at Heathrow. No one has been able to definitively confirm or refute the Die Zeit story.

B

is for bomb-maker

The German anti-terror campaign Operation Autumn Leaves (see J, O and P) led to the arrest of bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat weeks before the Lockerbie disaster. Khreesat was released after a few days because of a lack of evidence. In April 1989 further German police raids resulted in the discovery of two more bombs designed by Khreesat specifically to blow up aircraft. Did he make the bomb which was placed on feeder flight Pan Am 103A before it left Frankfurt for Heathrow?

C

is for coffin

Two coach-loads of officials arrived at the disaster scene in the day after the crash. Many were plain-clothed Americans with no obvious affiliation. Among their baggage was a single coffin for which no explanation has ever been given. Labour MP Tam Dalyell later produced evidence indicating that the Americans had "stolen" a body from the wreckage. A local doctor identified and labelled 59 bodies and was then puzzled to find that the Americans had relabelled and tagged only 58 in the area where he had been working.

D

is for drugs

Lockerbie farmer Jim Wilson found a suitcase full of cellophane packets containing white powder among the debris in his fields. The suitcase was taken away, no explanation was given, and the authorities continued to insist that no drugs (apart from a small quantity of cannabis) had been found on the plane. But it was later discovered that the name Mr Wilson saw on the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names on the Pan Am 103 passenger list.

E

is for the Express

Ten days after the Lockerbie disaster, the Daily Express devoted its front page to exposing a Lebanese American called Khaled Jafaar whom it named as the "bomb carrier". The Express's sources were "the FBI and Scotland Yard". The Interfor report (see I) also named Khaled Jafaar as the bomb carrier.

F

is for fiction

It has been argued that talk of the CIA, cover-ups, bombs, timers and Maltese trousers (see M) is just entertaining fiction. Some observers believe that there was no bomb on Pan Am 103 and that explosive decompression or an electrical fault caused the Lockerbie disaster, as they caused other Boeing 747 crashes.

G

is for Garrick

Paul Channon, British Secretary of State for Transport, lunched five journalists at the Garrick Club three months after Lockerbie and told them, off-the-record, that the Lockerbie killers had been identified and would soon be arrested. Yet the two Libyans who came to be the prime suspects were not charged until November 1991. It seems likely that at that time Mr Channon was confident that the Lockerbie bomb was the work of the Palestinians (see P).

H

is for Helsinki

Sixteen days before the disaster, a man rang the US embassy in Helsinki, Finland, and warned of a bomb aboard a Pan Am aircraft flying from Frankfurt to the US. The 1990 US President's Commission report on aviation security said that "thousands of US government employees saw the Helsinki threat". Not a single US worker at the Moscow embassy took flight Pan Am 103 from Frankfurt, a standard and popular route home for Christmas. But the British Department of Transport had told Pan Am in December that British intelligence dismissed the threat as "not real".

I

is for Interfor

A report by Interfor, a New York corporate investigative company hired by Pan Am, suggested that a Palestinian gang (see P) had got the bomb on to the airliner at Frankfurt by exploiting a US intelligence deal (see U). In a bid to free American hostages in Beirut, American intelligence agents had apparently struck a deal with Syrian drug smugglers: in exchange for hostage information, the agents smoothed the Lebanon-US drugs route by relaxing security restrictions and allowing drug luggage to sail through customs. The terrorist gang simply switched the drug luggage for a bomb.

J

is for Ahmed Jibril

Ahmed Jibril was the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) (see P). He enjoyed the protection of the Syrian government. Intelligence agents reported that Jibril had been assigned by a furious Iran to avenge the shooting down of an Iranian airbus by a US warship in 1988 (which killed 290 people). The leader of Jibril's terrorist gang, Hafez Dalkamoni, was one of the Palestinians arrested in Operation Autumn Leaves (see O).

K

is for Kuwait

In 1990 Kuwait was invaded by Saddam Hussein. Anglo-American attitudes to the Middle East were transformed. Paul Foot and John Ashton argue that theories about Lockerbie are inextricably linked to this changing political situation. In 1989 intelligence-based evidence fitted snugly with US and British foreign policy in the Middle East. Both countries had severed relations with Syria, and the Iraq-Iran war ended in 1988 with America and Britain continuing to be hostile to Iran and supportive of Iraq. The US and British governments were content with the prime Lockerbie suspects: a Palestinian gang (see P), backed by Syria and Iran. But in 1990, the impending Anglo-American war against Iraq necessitated neutralising Iran and winning the support of Syria. Britain's diplomatic relations with Syria were duly restored in November 1990 and the Gulf war commenced in 1991. Sure enough, the credibility of intelligence theories about the Lockerbie bombing being masterminded by the Iran- and Syria-backed Palestinian gang was soon dismantled.

L

is for Libya

In November 1991, the American and British governments charged two Libyan airline officials, Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, with planting the Lockerbie bomb. To justify the radical change in the investigation's focus away from the Palestinians, the US State Department said: "Fresh evidence undermined the initial theory linking the PFLP-GC (see P) to the bomb". This included evidence that the Lockerbie bomb's "sophisticated electronic timer" had been delivered from Switzerland to Libya. And, in contrast, the bombs discovered in the hands of the Palestinians in Germany (see B) had "relatively crude timers".

M

is for the Maltese connection

A series of Sunday Times investigative pieces reported that the Lockerbie bomb had first been put on a plane in Malta. The bombing had been carried out by the Palestinian group (see P), after a gang member, Abu Talb, visited Malta. He was identified by a Maltese boutique owner as the man who bought clothes later found in the bomb suitcase. A bag which ended up on Pan Am 103 was identified by a baggage handler as coming from an Air Malta flight. When a Granada TV documentary repeated the allegations, Air Malta sued Granada for libel. A hitherto unpublished document from Air Malta's lawyers demonstrated that there were no bags on the flight which went on to Pan Am 103 or 103A. Granada settled out of court.

N

is for not proven

Legally defined as "a criminal verdict, somewhere between guilty and not guilty, the consequences of which are that the accused is treated as if found not guilty". Britain and the US fear that if attention is paid to the conflicting conspiracy theories, the case against the Libyans in The Hague could only be "not proven".

O

is for Operation Autumn Leaves

Five weeks before the Palestinian warning (see I) was received, a German anti-terrorism campaign, Operation Autumn Leaves, arrested a "team of Palestinians not associated with the PLO" in possession of a bomb in a cassette recorder (see T) strikingly similar to the Lockerbie bomb. These Palestinians, including Hafez Dalkamoni (see J) and Marwan Khreesat (see B) had been arrested outside a flat in Neuss - two hours' drive from Frankfurt, from whose airport Pan Am 103's feeder flight had originated. They were released after five days because there was not enough evidence against them.

P

is for Palestinians

Operation Autumn Leaves led to the arrest of a gang associated with a splinter group of the Palestinian movement the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC). Was Pan Am 103 blown up by a Palestinian gang, protected by Syria and paid for by Iran?

Q

is for Queen's English

The official air accident report concludes: "The detonation of an improvised explosive device led directly to the destruction of the aircraft". If it was a bomb why wasn't it called a bomb in plain English?

R

is for red tarpaulin

On the night of the disaster teams of rescue volunteers scouring the area discovered a large object under a red tarpaulin. As they approached it, they were warned off by gunmen in the doorway of a hovering helicopter. A local farmer, Innes Graham, was also warned by US investigators to stay away from a small wooded area a few miles east of Lockerbie.

S

is for the Swiss circuit board

A central piece of evidence which pointed to the Libyans (see L) was a tiny fragment of a circuit board found among the Lockerbie debris. This was traced to a firm in Switzerland which exported timers to Libya. Apart from the confusion over when and where the circuit board was found (reports vary between June and November 1990), the Libyan connection to the timers is not as clear-cut as investigators have claimed. The US state department maintained that all timers from the Swiss firm had been delivered to Libya, but a BBC radio programme later proved that the firm had provided identical timers to the East German secret police, the Stasi.

T

is for Toshiba

The German anti-terror campaign Operation Autumn Leaves (see O) discovered a Toshiba cassette recorder packed with semtex. Pieces of a similar model of recorder had been found in the wreckage at Lockerbie.

U

is for US intelligence

There have been several claims that the bomb was planted on Pan Am 103 by a crack team of US intelligence agents. A Radio Forth journalist reported the claim and, within an hour, was threatened with prosecution or, bizarrely, invited to disclose his source to the Prime Minister. The Interfor report (see I) also alleged that Major Charles McKee, the head of the US intelligence team, who was travelling on the plane, was shocked by his colleagues' deal with Syrian drug smugglers and was returning on Pan Am 103 to report them. The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid of Major McKee. But the Interfor report was greeted with widespread scepticism.

V

is for Vincent Cannistraro

In the early 1990s the Lockerbie investigation shifted from the Scottish Borders to the CIA base in America. The man in charge there was Vincent Cannistraro. Mr Cannistraro had worked with Oliver North in President Reagan's National Security Council and, Paul Foot and John Ashton argue, he "specialised in the US vendetta against Libya". Mr Cannistraro was part of a secret programme to destabilise the Libyan regime which culminated in the US bombing of Libya in 1986. He retired from the CIA in September 1990 but by then had helped lay the foundations for a completely new approach to the bombing investigation, in which the chief suspect was not Iran or Syria, but Libya.

W

is for warning

Three days before the Helsinki threat (see H), an intelligence source in the US state department's office of diplomatic security warned that a team of Palestinians, not associated with the PLO, was targeting Pan Am airline and US military bases in Europe. The comment attached to the message read: "We cannot refute or confirm this".

X

is for xenophobia

In 1989 Anglo-American intelligence services and politicians widely blamed the Lockerbie bomb on a Palestinian terror group (see P), backed by Syria and Iran. In 1990, (see K) Iraq became the Anglo-American Arab enemy number one in the run-up to the Gulf war; Iran became neutral and Syrian troops joined the Allied forces. Only Libya remained adamantly aligned with Iraq. Suddenly, coincidentally, the Lockerbie bomb was blamed on the Libyans.

Y

is for Yvonne Fletcher

PC Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984, causing diplomatic relations between Britain and Libya to be severed. The file on Yvonne Fletcher is still open and Britain continues to demand Libyan co-operation on the matter. The fairness of the trial of the two Libyan suspects could yet affect this case.

Z

is for Zeist

Camp Zeist is the former US air base in The Hague where the two Libyans are being tried under Scottish law. But even the conviction of Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah seems unlikely to still the disquiet and conspiracies that continue to surround flight Pan Am 103.

Libya gives Lockerbie inquiry go-ahead

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of The Guardian.  It reads in part:]

Libya has given the green light for British police to visit the country to conduct investigations into the Lockerbie bombing and the assassination of PC Yvonne Fletcher, the British foreign minister Alistair Burt has said.

The governing National Transitional Council had stalled on earlier requests for officers to travel to Libya, but Burt said the new Libyan government, sworn in last weekend, would co-operate.

Libya's interior minister, Fawzy Abdel Aal, confirmed on Thursday morning he would agree to "the early return of the Dumfries and Galloway police in relation to Lockerbie", said Burt.

The minister, who is on a two-day visit to Tripoli, said Abdel Aal had made the same promise regarding the investigation into the killing of Fletcher, gunned down outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. "We are very keen that the Metropolitan police should return to continue their investigation," Burt said. "The Libyan government is aware of how important it is."

He said Libyan officials had given no dates for the visits, but expected it to happen soon, adding: "This is a new government, I think they have a lot on their plate." (...)

Scottish investigators want to interview Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, jailed for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing but released on grounds of ill health by the Scottish government in August 2009. He currently lives in Tripoli, reportedly in ill-health. [RB: This the first suggestion that I have seen that the Scottish investigators wish to interview Megrahi. I suspect that even if he is in a condition to speak to them, he will tell the Scottish police (politely, for he is a polite person) to get lost.]

Burt told journalists the move was an important confidence-building measure between Libya's new government and the UK. He said Libya was being offered the chance for security training from the Metropolitan police and the army, and that British security and education consultants were being encouraged to bid for work in Libya.

New Libyan government "will not hand over Megrahi"

[The following are excerpts from a report published (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Sunday Times:]

Libya’s new government will refuse to hand over the suspected killer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the Lockerbie bomber if Britain seeks their extradition, senior officials warned this weekend.

Members of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said they would block any request for a British trial of the man suspected of shooting Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.

They would also reject any attempt to return Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, to prison in Scotland.

Hassan al-Sagheer, a member of the NTC and a legal expert, said: “Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle.” (...)

[The comments will] dismay relatives of the Lockerbie victims and politicians in Britain and America who have called for Megrahi to be sent back to jail. David Cameron has said he should not have been released two years ago when it was thought he would die from prostate cancer within months. (...)

Members of the NTC said they were highly unlikely to change the position.

“According to our laws, no one can be handed over unless there are previous agreements or special agreements to do so,” said Fawzi al-Ali, another NTC member.

A senior judge who took part in the early stages of the uprising that toppled Gadaffi last week emphasised another reason why Megrahi would not be sent to Britain or — as some US politicians have demanded — America.

The bomber is a member of one of the largest tribes that sided with Gadaffi during the revolt. “Any move to hand him back would cause internal conflict at a time when we are trying to bridge differences,” the judge said.

[Here is UK Foreign Secretary William Hague's response, as reported on The Telegraph website:]

Speaking in a round of broadcast interviews this morning, Mr Hague said: "This is an ongoing police investigation so it is quite difficult for me to comment.

"I would say that when chairman (Mustafa Abdel) Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue.

"It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. but we look to them to cooperate fully.

"So I would not take what has been written in the press today as the last word."

[And here is the Libyan National Transitional Council's rejoinder, as reported by The Press Association news agency:]

On Sunday morning, Foreign Secretary William Hague struck an optimistic note on the case, saying National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil had pledged to "co-operate fully".

"I would say that when chairman Jalil...was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue," Mr Hague said in a round of broadcast interviews. It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. But we look to them to co-operate fully."

Mr Hague played down comments by junior NTC members that extraditions would be blocked, insisting they were not the "last word".

However, on Sunday evening new justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi became the most senior figure so far to rule out handing individuals over.

"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," he told reporters in Tripoli. "Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again ... We do not hand over Libyan citizens. (Muammar) Gaddafi does."

[It should be noted that Libya did not extradite Megrahi and Fhimah for trial at Zeist, for exactly the reason set out above -- Libyan law (like that of many other countries) does not permit the extradition of its citizens for trial abroad. Megrahi and Fhimah voluntarily surrendered for trial, a decision that Megrahi at least must now bitterly regret.]

Closing the Lockerbie case, not solving it

[This is the headline over an article by Simon Tisdall that was published in The Guardian on this date in 2000. It reads as follows:]

The long search for justice by the families of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie disaster is approaching a crucial point with the opening next week in the Netherlands of the trial of two Libyan suspects accused of sabotaging Pan Am flight 103. The plane crashed near the Scottish town of Lockerbie after exploding in mid-air, killing 270 people.

But the trial of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah may raise more questions than it answers. The two men, alleged to be agents of Libyan intelligence, are expected to deny all the charges levelled against them. And terrorism experts say it is almost inconceivable that, even if they were involved, they could have acted alone or without the knowledge of the government of Colonel Muammar Gadafy.

As a condition for finally handing over the two suspects, after a protracted legal wrangle, Libya stipulated that the special court to be convened in Zeist would not seek to put the Libyan state on trial but concentrate solely on the case against the two men.

Libya's longstanding involvement in international terrorism will, however, provide the context for the trial. The US state department lists Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism and has maintained bilateral sanctions against the country. Its status as one of a group of so-called "rogue states" is used by the US, for example, to justify its need for a new "Star Wars" defensive missile shield.

Col Gadafy is a long-standing bogyman of the west. The US air attacks on Tripoli in 1986, ordered by President Ronald Reagan, followed a Libyan-inspired attack on a Berlin discotheque used by American servicemen. At various times, Col Gadafy has expressed support for groups engaged in armed struggles, from Lebanon to Northern Ireland.

Libyan "diplomats" were responsible for the murder in London of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. Last May, a shipment of Scud missile parts bound for Libya were discovered at Gatwick airport - a breach of the international arms embargo against Libya. And earlier this year, it was alleged that the British intelligence service, MI6, had at one time plotted to assassinate Col Gadafy.

Despite Libya's bloody track record, the Lockerbie attack was widely reported at the time to have been commissioned and paid for by Iran, which was said to be determined to avenge the earlier, accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf by the American navy ship, the USS Vincennes. The Iranians allegedly employed a Syrian-based terrorist group as middlemen. Under this theory, the Libyans were merely the "bag men" and the two suspects are fall-guys for a much wider plot.

Col Gadafy has been trying to clean up his image recently. His agreement to pay compensation for the death of WPC Fletcher, and his handing over of the Lockerbie suspects last April, brought a resumption of diplomatic ties with Britain, which has now sent an ambassador back to Tripoli. This week, Sir John Kerr, the top Foreign Office civil servant, will pursue this improvement in relations with a personal visit to Libya. Even the US has reopened informal diplomatic contacts.

Col Gadafy has also returned to the Organisation of African Unity fold, after many years of self-imposed isolation. And he attended the recent EU-Africa summit meeting in Cairo. Although on his best behaviour, he could not resist a characteristic tirade against the former colonial powers' African legacy.

The EU has lifted most remaining sanctions on Libya, although a proposal by Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, to invite Col Gadafy to Brussels was withdrawn recently amid much embarrassment.

Behind this thaw lies economic self-interest - Libya has important oil reserves and untapped commercial potential - and a desire to encourage Col Gadafy to adopt less threatening policies; put simply, to bring Libya in from the cold.

Thus while the Zeist trial may finally help bring the long-suffering families of the Lockerbie victims some sense of vindication, it may be unable to uncover the whole story of what really happened to flight 103. And suspicions will persist that governments as far apart as Tehran and Washington share a common interest in bringing the affair to a conclusion, however unsatisfactory - and in drawing a veil over the many murky and bloody episodes which comprised the West's undeclared 20-year war with Col Gadafy.

Libya rules out visit by British police to investigate Lockerbie ...

… Demands clarification of Blair’s role as dictator’s advisor 

[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of the Libyan English-language newspaper The Tripoli Post.  It reads in part:]

Libya's interior minister on 6 March ruled out a visit by British police to investigate the 1988 Lockerbie bombing or the killing of British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher almost two decades ago.

"There is no treaty between Britain and Libya to allow such a thing," Fawzi Abdelali told AFP in a joint interview with a British newspaper, adding that London had some explaining to do on its own dealings with dead brutal dictator Gaddafi and his regime. (...)

Abdelali implied the timing of British demand is a sort of pressuring the country at a sensitive time faced by the newly liberated Libya which is trying to rebuild everything from scratch.

"Why did they shut up about this all these years and bring it up now, when we are in a period of transition and building up our institutions from scratch after decades of dictatorship," the minister asked.

"Do you remember when Fletcher was killed? We are now in 2012. Where was the British government from 1984 until 2011?" said the former district attorney who now has access to tens of thousands of files on Gaddafi’s dealings with world leaders.

For his part, Abdelali said he wanted allegations to be investigated by the ousted leader's jailed son Seif al-Islam that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had acted as a political adviser to his father.

Blair played a key role in repairing diplomatic ties between the two countries and visited the Libya several times after 2004.

"Why did the British government improve its relations with Gaddafi? Something happened in this case between the former Libyan regime and the British government to end this dispute," said the minister.

"Didn't America and Britain accept millions of dollars from Gaddafi as the price to end this case (Lockerbie)? Who let Abdelbaset al-Megrahi go? Did we?" he asked, referring to the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people died.

A Scottish court in 2001 convicted Megrahi but he was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after doctors said he had terminal cancer and only three months left to live.

The interior minister proposed that the British government ask Libyan authorities to open an investigation inside Libya, and the Libyan side would then share its findings with police in Britain.

But any decision would have to await the election of a new government in Libya, which is expected to vote on a constituent assembly in the last week of June, Abdelali stressed.

Gaddafi demands return of Lockerbie bomber in first meeting with Brown

In his first face to face meeting with Gordon Brown, Muammar Gaddafi today demanded the return of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

The Libyan leader was told by the prime minister that it was a matter for the Scottish courts.

Gaddafi, wearing a flowing black and white silken robe and protected by female bodyguards, is at the G8 summit in Italy as the rotating president of the African Union. (...)

In a 40-minute meeting between the two leaders, conducted in Arabic and English, Brown insisted he could not intervene in the Megrahi case.

Scottish judges this week delayed completing an appeal into Megrahi's conviction until at least September, even though he has prostate cancer and faces a risk of dying in prison.

The bombing of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 killed 270 people on the aircraft and the ground.

Gaddafi's demand for the return of Megrahi was countered by Brown urging him to do more to cooperate with the Metropolitan police investigation into the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984.

Her murder led to the severing of diplomatic ties between the two countries for a decade, but Gaddafi subsequently worked to improve relations with the west, so much so that Tony Blair went to Tripoli to meet him in 2004.

The Libyans have admitted responsibility for Fletcher's killing by embassy staff and have paid compensation, but Britain is complaining that Libya is not producing witnesses, meaning the inquiry has stalled for more than a year.

[From a report by Patrick Wintour on the website of The Guardian. There is a similar report on The Herald's website; and a shorter report on the BBC News website.]

Libya's 'torturer-in-chief' offered asylum in Britain in return for help toppling Gaddafi

[This is the headline over an article by Robert Verkaik in today's edition of The Mail on Sunday. It reads in part:]

Libya’s feared ‘torturer-in-chief’ has been offered asylum in the UK in return for his help to topple Muammar Gaddafi and his hated regime.

The secret offer to Libya’s former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, was made while he was still in Tripoli and helped persuade him to seek sanctuary in Britain.

But any promise of special protection for one of Gaddafi’s most notorious henchmen has provoked anger from those who want Koussa, 62, put on trial for his alleged crimes. (...)

MI6 officers first made contact with Koussa, who has been linked with the Lockerbie bombing and the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London, in the first few days after the UN-sanctioned attacks on Gaddafi’s military machine on March 19.

A source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Central to the enticements was the prospect of living in safety in the UK under the protection of the asylum laws. Koussa’s greatest concern was what would happen to him once he left Gaddafi.

‘This was not a long, drawn-out operation – once contact had been made it all happened pretty quickly.’

Koussa fled Tripoli last Monday night after telling colleagues that he was seeking medical help in Tunisia. The convoy of official vehicles crossed the Tunisian border and went on to Tunis’s Djerba-Zaris airport. (...)

Koussa is still being questioned by MI6 officers and diplomats in a safe house at a secret location in the Home Counties. His wife, at least one of his children and his extended family remain in Tripoli.

He also has two daughters educated and living in the UK and a son who is a neurosurgeon working in the US.

The Foreign Office refused to discuss whether any kind of offer had been made to Koussa and reiterated that there would be no immunity from prosecution. But a spokesman added: ‘Discussions are ongoing on a range of issues, obviously (immigration) status is an important issue.’ (...)

Foreign Office officials will meet Scottish police and prosecutors tomorrow about their formal request to interview Koussa over the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie which killed 270 people in December 1988. Prosecutors are hoping to charge six Libyan intelligence agents in connection the attack and believe he holds vital evidence.

Mike O’Brien, a former Labour Foreign Office Minister who negotiated with Koussa in 2003 over Lockerbie compensation, weapons of mass destruction and the investigation into WPC Fletcher, said he expected him to claim asylum.

But he also said it would be difficult to prove any of the charges against him, raising the prospect of Koussa living in Britain as a free man.

He said: ‘Koussa was head of the organisation (the Libyan intelligence service) that was blamed for much of this, but proving what he knew and when he knew it will be more difficult.

‘Although people have to be brought to justice, it is sometimes difficult to find the evidence.’ (...)

MI6 is now targeting other key members of the regime, including Abu Zayd Dorba, the head of external intelligence, Mohamed al-Zwai, secretary general of the People’s Congress and Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, a former prime minister. (...)

Mustafa Gheriani, spokesman for the Libyan revolutionary council, said: ‘We want to bring him to court. This guy has so much blood on his hands. There are documented killings, torturing. We want him tried here. International law gives us that right.’

Should Koussa be granted asylum, it will not protect him from extradition to other countries where he is wanted in connection with terrorism offences.

America may want to seek his trial over Lockerbie, and relatives of the 170 victims of the 1989 airliner bombing in Niger want Koussa questioned over that attack.

Brown insisted he could not intervene in Megrahi case

What follows is excerpted from an item originally posted on this blog on this date in 2009:

Gaddafi demands return of Lockerbie bomber in first meeting with Brown

In his first face to face meeting with Gordon Brown, Muammar Gaddafi today demanded the return of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

The Libyan leader was told by the prime minister that it was a matter for the Scottish courts. [RB: Tony Blair was, of course, mistaken: it was a matter for a Scottish Government minister.]

Gaddafi, wearing a flowing black and white silken robe and protected by female bodyguards, is at the G8 summit in Italy as the rotating president of the African Union. (...)

In a 40-minute meeting between the two leaders, conducted in Arabic and English, Brown insisted he could not intervene in the Megrahi case.

Scottish judges this week delayed completing an appeal into Megrahi's conviction until at least September, even though he has prostate cancer and faces a risk of dying in prison.

The bombing of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 killed 270 people on the aircraft and the ground.

Gaddafi's demand for the return of Megrahi was countered by Brown urging him to do more to cooperate with the Metropolitan police investigation into the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984.

Her murder led to the severing of diplomatic ties between the two countries for a decade, but Gaddafi subsequently worked to improve relations with the west, so much so that Tony Blair went to Tripoli to meet him in 2004.

The Libyans have admitted responsibility for Fletcher's killing by embassy staff and have paid compensation, but Britain is complaining that Libya is not producing witnesses, meaning the inquiry has stalled for more than a year.

[From a report by Patrick Wintour on the website of The Guardian. There is a (...) shorter report on the BBC News website.]