Verdicts due in Tripoli trial of Gaddafi-era officials

Verdicts are expected today in the trial before a court in Tripoli of 37 Gaddafi-era officials. As well as Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, they include figures who played a significant part in the resolution of the Lockerbie impasse between Libya and the United Kingdom and United States, including Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, Mohammed Belqasim Zwai and Abuzed Omar Dorda. See Libya court to rule on Gaddafi's son Saif, former officials on July 28 and Court to rule on Gaddafi’s son in war-torn Libya.

BBC News reports that Saif and eight others have been sentenced to death: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33688391. None of the reports so far available (11.40 am) mentions Obeidi, Zwai and Dorda.

Libya may compensate Lockerbie families

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Politicians linked to Lockerbie case return to court

[This is the headline over a report dated 15 October on the Zapaday website.  It reads as follows:]

The court case resumes for two former government officials working for the late Moammer Gaddafi's regime. They are accused of squandering public money by granting a compensation deal of $2.7 billion to the families of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing victims.

The accused, Mohammed Abu El-Gassem Yusuf al-Zwai and Abdulati Ibrahim Muhammad al-Obeidi, allegedly brokered this compensation deal in exchange for the lifting of UN sanctions and US trade sanctions on Libya. In addition, they requested that Libya be removed from a list of states known for sponsoring terrorism.

These two former senior officials are charged with treason for engaging in negotiations with the lawyers of the victims' families, with the full knowledge that lawyers are not authorised by the US administration to negotiate the conditions of trade sanctions and terrorism suspects.

The presiding judge has argued that the compensation deal was a waste of public money since there was no guarantee that the conditions would be met, nor that the charges for the bombing would be dropped. Observers have registered surprise at the wording of the charges. Given that Libya's central government is still weak after the ousting of Gaddafi, it has been argued that legal proceedings at the moment do not meet international standards.

However, it is evident that Libya's new rulers are keen to show citizens that those who helped Gaddafi cling to power shall be held accountable. Both Saif Al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and Abdullah Al- Senussi, Libya's former chief spy are awaiting trial.

[An earlier post on this blog relating to the trial of Messrs Zwai and Obeidi can be read here.]

Obeidi & Zwai acquitted, Dorda sentenced to death

[What follows is the text of a report published this afternoon on the Libya Herald website:]

As was widely expected, a court in Tripoli has sentenced Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi and Abdullah Senussi to death for war crimes during the 2011 revolution. Seven other senior member of the Qaddafi regime have also been given death sentences. They are:

• Former prime minister Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi;
• Abuzeid Dourda; former General Secretary of the General People’s Committee (effectively prime minister) then Qaddafi’s external intelligence chief;
• Mansur Dhou, head of Qaddafi’s Tripoli internal security agency;
• Milad Daman head of internal security;
• Abdulhamid Ohida, an assistant to Senussi;
• Awidat Ghandoor Noubi, responsible for Qaddafi’s Revolutionary Committees in Tripoli;
• Mundar Mukhtar Ghanaimi

Among the other former regime figures on trial, 23 were given jail terms from life imprisonment in the case of eight of the accused to five years for one of them. One person, Nuri Al-Jetlawi, was ordered to be detained at a psychiatric hospital while four were found innocent and freed: former foreign minister Abdulati Al–Obeidi, Ali Zway, Mohamed Al-Waher and Amer Abani.

In the case of Saif Al-Islam, who like Abdullah Senussi, was wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the guilty verdict and sentencing was effectively in absentia. He is being held in Zintan.

All those sentenced to death, as well as the others, have a right to appeal within 60 days. Even if there is no appeal, the sentences still have to be endorsed by the High Court. If the sentences are carried out in the case of Saif Al-Islam, Senussi and the other seven sentenced to death, execution ill be by firing squad.

The court proceedings, held at Hadba Al-Khadra prison, have attracted considerable criticism from Libyan and international human rights lawayers and activists. In the case of Saif Al-Islam, his British lawyer, John Jones, condemned it as “a show trial”. “The whole thing is illegitimate from start to finish… It’s judicially sanctioned execution”, he said.

The internationally recognised government in Beida has rejected the trial as unsafe.

[RB: I am delighted at the acquittal of Messrs Obeidi and Zwai, both of whom played an important and honourable part in resolving the Lockerbie impasse between Libya and the United Kingdom and United States. The conviction of and death sentence on Abuzed Dorda horrify me. As Libya’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations he also had a major rôle in the resolution of the issue. I met all of them on many occasions and found them entirely trustworthy and likeable.]

Libyan newspaper report on Lockerbie compensation trial

[What follows is the text of a report published on the website of the Libya Herald:]

Libyan prosecutor says payout to Lockerbie victims “a waste of public money”

The trial of Mohamed Zway, the former secretary of the General People’s Congress, and Abdul-Ati Al-Obeidi, the secretary of the People’s Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, opened in Tripoli on Monday.

The two, who have been held in  jail since they were arrested 14 months ago, are accused of poor performance of their duties while in office and of maladministration, specifically wasting of public funds in respect of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The prosecution claims that it was wrong to organise a compensation deal of $2.7 billion to the victims’ families in return for getting Libya removed from the list of the states that sponsor terrorism.The judge said that the deal “was a waste of public money especially when there was no guarantee the charges in the Lockerbie case would be dropped if the compensation was made”.

The charges have surprised many observers as they imply that the two should have been more effective in serving the Qaddafi regime and that the Lockerbie deal should not have happened.

Both men denied the charges in court.

Their lawyer made several requests, the most important of which was a postponement of proceedings in order to give the defence time to examine all the documentary evidence. He also asked to see his clients in private and, pending a postponement, requested the court to release them on bail.

Bail was refused but the court permitted the lawyer to meet the defendents in private. It accepted the request to photocopy some of the evidence but none of the classified documents.

The trial was adjourned to 15 October 2012.

At a press conference on Sunday, former Justice Minister Mohamed Al-Alagy claimed that this trial and and those of other Qaddafi officials were “invalid” because the law was not being properly implemented.  He said that the prosecution was sidestepping due process whereby such cases must first go the Indictment Court to be processed.

[When I first met Mr Zway (or Zwai or al-Zwai) in 1994, he was himself Libya’s Minister of Justice.  He was one of the army officers who, with Muammar Gaddafi, mounted the 1969 coup against the king, Idris al-Senussi, and the only one still holding high office in the regime. Abdel Ati al-Obeidi was then Libyan ambassador to Morocco but subsequently held many other offices, including ambassador to Italy, Deputy Foreign Minister with responsibility for European relations, head of Gaddafi’s private office and Foreign Minister.  In all of these incarnations he remained as chairman of the Libyan Government committee on Lockerbie.]

Libya's judges confront the past

[This is the headline over an interesting article by Mohamed Eljarh published yesterday in the Transitions blog on the website of the influential Foreign Policy magazine.  It reads in part:]

Ever since the revolution, Libyans have been waiting to see how the court system is going to settle accounts with Qaddafi-era officials. Now the first verdict has finally arrived -- but it clearly wasn't what a lot of people were expecting.

A Libyan court in Tripoli has acquitted two former officials in Colonel Qaddafi's regime of wasting public money by spending $2.7 billion on payments to the families of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Ex-Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi and Mohamed al-Zwai, the former head of Qaddafi's legislature, stood accused of arranging compensation for the families of victims of the attack. The two men were trying to persuade the survivors to drop their claims against Libya. The prosecution had charged that Obeidi and Zwai were responsible for negotiating settlements with the Lockerbie families and had paid out double the amount originally planned.

This would be the first verdict in a number of cases against key figures in the old Qaddafi regime by the new Libyan government following his killing in 2011. Despite being acquitted in this case, both men will remain in custody while further investigations take place ahead of a wider trial in August, where allegations of war crimes, including mass killings and incitement to rape, will be put to the court, according to state prosecutor al-Seddik al-Sur. Qaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi are among the defendants in this wider trial.

While the families of the two officials celebrated the innocent verdict and expressed their happiness with the Libyan judiciary, the public prosecutor was quick to announce a new trial and took measures to ensure that the two officials will in custody, emphasizing that the Lockerbie-related charges are a "side case." The judge gave no reasons for his verdict after the trial, which lasted seven months. The two officials were tried under Qaddafi-era laws.

Many Libyans are cautiously celebrating what they claim to be "the independence of the judiciary." However, after the court's verdict some prominent Facebook pages and groups (mainly pro-isolation law and pro-militias) started calling for the cleansing of the judiciary, claiming that the revolution has yet to happen within the judicial establishment in Libya. They claim that the current judicial establishment will find Saif al-Islam and Abdullah al-Senussi innocent, and that the judges affected by the isolation process will hamper the implementation of the isolation law. The fear of attacks on the judiciary and the justice system could explain the quick announcement by the country's public prosecutor that the two acquitted officials will remain in custody as his office prepares for these broader proceedings.

However, many in Libya called the trial a "waste of time." Claiming that the Saif al-Islam and al-Senussi have yet to stand trial, and that these "side cases" are just used by the authorities to buy them time as they keep delaying the trials of the key crimes committed by the former regime. The general sentiment between Libyans is that the authorities have failed to facilitate or build any substantial cases against many of the ex-regime officials, and that the evidence required to convict them is not available. (...)

Lawyers for Justice in Libya expressed concern at the increase in attacks on judges and lawyers in Libya. Most recently, a senior judge from the eastern city of Albaida was shot dead in a drive-by shooting in front of the local courthouse in Derna last Sunday.

Moreover, the legitimacy and independence of the judiciary in Libya is compromised by its lack of autonomy and by interference from the General National Congress (Libya's interim legislature). Judges throughout Libya have condemned the recent Political Isolation Law, and some have gone on strike because it targets the judiciary. An appeal by more than 60 judges and lawyers against the law has been submitted to the Supreme Court. They argue that the judiciary should be independent and that the isolation law violates the principle of the separation of powers among the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judiciary). The judges stress that any reform within the judicial establishment should come from within, that it should be based on consultation with the legislative and executive branches of government, and that it should not imposed by one or the other.

In post-revolution Libya, the process of judicial institutionalization is constantly undermined by political instability and the lack of security as well as by the struggle for power between the different factions in the absence of the constitution. Ensuring the independence of the judiciary and security of its personnel is of vital importance for Libya's transition. Ultimately, the absence of security for justice sector personnel has led and will continue to lead to indefinite delays in the processing of the cases of ex-regime officials and conflict-related detainees.

Gaddafi-era officials kept in jail over Lockerbie case

[This is the heading over a translated transcript on the Link TV website of an item broadcast on the BBC Arabic service.  It reads as follows:]

Presenter, Male #1
Two former Libyan regime officials, Mohammed al-Zwai and Abdulati al-Obeidi, appeared before the Tripoli appeals court where they are being tried on charges of squandering public money in the Lockerbie case, and of treason. The court ordered them to remain in prison pending the outcome of the case, and rejected the defense's request to release them on bail.

Reporter, Male #2
Strict security measures were enforced near the court of appeals in the Libyan capital Tripoli as two former officials from the era of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi, speaker of parliament Mohammed al-Zwai and foreign minister Abdulati al-Obeidi, arrived to appear before the court. They are charged with squandering public funds by granting compensations to the families of the victims in the case of the bombing of Pan American [flight 103] over the Scottish city of Lockerbie, which exceeded USD 2.7 billion, and for treason by betraying the state's trust to negotiate on its behalf abroad.

Reporter, Male #2
During the session, the two defendants denied the accusations directed against them by the judge who refused to release them and ordered to keep them in prison pending the outcome of the case. As soon the session ended, the defense lawyer expressed satisfaction with the course of the trial, despite the rejection of his request to release his clients on bail.

Guest, Male #3
The court granted our requests despite rejecting the request for their release but this is its jurisdiction. I am satisfied because the court heard us, and heard the justifications for the release request, and the justifications to hear the defense witnesses. We hope that the trial will be a fair one.

Reporter, Male #2
The Libyan street seemed to be following this case with great interest, placing their confidence in the Libyan judiciary.

Guest, Male #4
The Libyan judiciary is known for being fair, and it has been in existence for a long time, and we are very confident in the Libyan judiciary. As for the people who are now being tried, the law is the decider. If the law finds them guilty, they will bear the consequences of their acts. And if the law finds them innocent, they are just Libyan citizens, just like all Libyans.

Guest, Male #5
Everything is under the command of the Libyan authorities and the Libyan judiciary, and I am certain that at the end it will be fair, and it will not be unjust again.

Reporter, Male #2
According to the documents of the case against the two defendants, they are not authorized to negotiate all of the provisions of the agreement and its conditions, and they will be tried in accordance with the Economic Crimes Law and the Penal Code.

Trial of Obeidi & Zwai over Lockerbie compensation adjourned

[What follows is an excerpt from a report published yesterday on the website of the Libya Herald:]

Court proceedings against former Foreign Minister Abdulati Ibrahim Al-Obeidi and former Secretary General of the General People’s Congress Mohammed Zwai have been adjourned yet again, for the fourth time.

The two were in court today, Monday, accused in connection with the $2.7 billion in compensation payments for families of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, charges they both deny.  However, after the court heard defense witnesses the judge decided to adjourn the trial until 4 February.

[Previous related blogposts can be found here and here and here.]

Verdict awaited in trial of Gaddafi-era officials

[What follows is excerpted from a Reuters news agency report dated 1 June 2015:]

A Libyan court will rule on July 28 on a son of Muammar Gaddafi and 36 other former regime officials accused of war crimes and suppressing peaceful protests during the 2011 revolution, a state prosecutor said on Monday. (...)

Others in the dock include Gaddafi-era prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, former foreign minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi and ex-intelligence chief Buzeid Dorda. They also face corruption and other charges.

The trial had started in April 2014 before fighting between rival factions in Tripoli ripped Libya apart in a power struggle which has produced two governments competing for authority.

It takes place in Tripoli which is controlled by a rival government set up after an armed faction called Libya Dawn seized the capital in August, expelling the official premier to the east.

The struggle has worsened chaos in the oil producer which has struggled to establish basic institutions since Gaddafi's four-decade one-man rule ended in 2011.

"The court has ended the hearing after all defendants gave their oral and written defence statements," said Sadiq al-Sur, head of the investigation department at the attorney general.

"God willing there will be a verdict on July 28...for 37 defendants," he told Reuters.

The International Criminal Court and other human rights organisations worry about the fairness of Libya's justice system although the North African country won the right in 2013 to try Gaddafi's former spy chief at home instead of at the ICC in The Hague.

Sur said all defendants had had plenty of time to meet their lawyers despite claims by some they had struggled to get access to their clients.

The verdicts could be appealed, said Sur.

[RB: Although he is not mentioned by name in the report, one of the other accused is Mohammed Belqasim Zwai. Obeidi, Dorda and Zwai were intimately involved on the Libyan side in seeking a resolution of the Lockerbie affair. In my dealings with them, I found them to be honest and straightforward -- a contrast with their UK and US counterparts.]

Trial of Obeidi and Zwai adjourned again

[What follows is taken from a report published earlier this week in the Libya Herald:]

Also in court today in a separate case were former foreign minister Abdel-Ati al-Obeidi and former Secretary General of the General People’s Congress Mohammed Zwai. They are accused in connection with the $2.7 billion in compensation payments for families of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, charges they both deny.

The case, already adjourned, was also again adjouned, until 7 January.

[Background material can be found in this blog post.]

Solution to Lockerbie impasse in sight

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

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

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

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

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

A historian's view on Musa Kusa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the man that Britain is now harbouring.

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

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

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