Defection of Moussa Koussa can only bring good

[This is the heading over three letters published in today's edition of The Herald. They read as follows:]

The defection of Muammar Gaddafi’s foreign minister (...) may be a case of a rat deserting a sinking ship, prematurely.

When Moussa Koussa baled out, the rebel forces were at the gates of Sirtre, Gaddafi’s home town. Had that fallen it would have been game over for Gaddafi.

We should, though, welcome the junking of Mr Koussa’s loyalty to the colonel for the light he might shed on the Lockerbie bombing for which he was allegedly responsible.If the allegation has merit then the UK and US will have a casus belli against the colonel himself, who must have given the order.

On the other hand, Mr Koussa may share the view of the US Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence bureaux around the globe, that the bombing of Pan Am 103 was ordered by Iran using a Syrian-based proxy, the PFLP-GC. In which case, a can of worms inside a Pandora’s box is opened; not least for Scottish politicians now on the election stump.
Thomas McLaughlin

The French Napoleonic justice system identified Gaddafi’s brother [-in-law] Abdullah Senoussi as the main perpetrator of the UTA aircraft bombing which followed Lockerbie, but Mr Koussa was not found to have been a perpetrator.

The Scottish system of justice had nothing to say in the Lockerbie case about any Libyan other than the two men, indicted by them and presented for trial, Al Amin Khalifa Fhima and Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.

The French reaction underlines the importance of Scottish investigators having access to Mr Koussa to find out whether he can help with their claimed active and ongoing criminal investigation into the Lockerbie tragedy.

If the profound doubts many of us have over the conviction of Megrahi were to be supported by Mr Koussa’s contribution, it might finally galvanise the Scots into examining at last why their Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, after studying the case for three years, came to the conclusion that the Zeist trial might have been a miscarriage of justice.

At the elections next month, voters might like to consider which candidates are most likely to support sweeping reforms to their criminal justice system, and vote for them.

Meanwhile Mr Koussa has not been accused (except in the US) over either atrocity, and his presence here, if he is treated with courtesy, may encourage others to defect.
Dr Jim Swire

Why do Scottish prosecutors insist on ignoring what is undoubtedly the only independent report on the case against Megrahi, and on taking serious steps to ensure the report is never published? The SCCRC found six grounds to suggest a miscarriage of justice may have occurred at the original trial.

Those findings make up a report which all of us should be free to read, yet we have been denied this right. Politicians do not have the right to interfere with our justice system in order to prevent uncomfortable truths from being exposed about particular cases, and nor does the judiciary have the right to delay the hearing of appeals related to those cases. Yet it has happened in this case.

Consider some of those truths: the US paid two witnesses, the Gauci brothers, $3 million for testimony. In fact, let’s stop right there. Had the US told the Scottish court at Zeist that it intended to pay such vast sums to any witness in that trial, those witnesses would have been rejected immediately. Scots law would have deemed it bribery.

Let us not rely on Mr Koussa. Let us begin with the SCCRC report. That, at least, is independent. It was almost four years in the making and cost a fortune. It should not be wasted.
Mrs J Greenhorn

Moussa Koussa to leave Britain

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

Moussa Koussa, the former Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain, is being allowed to leave the country after being questioned by Scottish police about his role in the Lockerbie affair, the Guardian can reveal.

Koussa is expected in the Qatari capital of Doha on Wednesday where an international conference on the future of Libya is being held with representatives from the Benghazi-based opposition.

Koussa is said to be seeking to establish whether he has a role to play in the rebel movement along with other senior defectors from the Gaddafi regime – perhaps by brokering a deal between Tripoli and Benghazi.

It is believed he has links with some of the leading rebel figures, including the opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril.

It is understood Koussa spent a week being debriefed by officials from MI6 at a safe house before being allowed to go free. He was questioned by Dumfries and Galloway police about the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in which 270 people died, though was he was not a suspect.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, had insisted that Koussa would not be given immunity from prosecution. (...)

It is expected that he will return to the UK in the next few days after the trip to the Middle East.

The hope in Whitehall is that Koussa's lenient treatment by the UK authorities will send a positive signal to other would-be Libyan defectors as part of a broader strategy of eroding Muammar Gaddafi's position. (...)

On Monday Koussa made his first public statement since leaving Libya 12 days ago. (...)

Speaking in Arabic, Koussa made no reference in his statement to questions about his past and any knowledge or involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. It is understood he has a lawyer representing him.

[A report just published on The Scotsman website can be read here.]

Moussa Koussa found in Qatar

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

The pianist a few feet away played “I Just Called to Say I love You". Men in traditional Qatari white kandouras – gowns – and headdresses sat scattered around the nearby café.

Yet, the man’s distinctive features were until recently one of the best-known faces of the regime of Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain at the end of March, left for Qatar shortly afterwards to take part in a “Gulf contact group” meeting of countries with an interest in resolving the Libya crisis.

He was expected to return to Britain shortly afterwards, where he was facing calls for his prosecution over accusations ranging from the Lockerbie bombing to supplying arms to the IRA.

Ten weeks later, there is little sign of that at the Four Seasons, causing growing anger among Libyan exiles and others who want him to be put on trial at the International Criminal Court.

“I remain firmly of the view that he should face the ICC,” said Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow whose family are of Libyan-Italian-Jewish ancestry and fled after suffering during pogroms. “You can’t have people like that being given protection without any recourse to justice.”

Mr Koussa was one of Col Gaddafi’s longest serving aides. He first came to attention in Britain as ambassador in 1980, giving an interview announcing that two Libyan exiles in London were to be killed. He was expelled immediately.

He was deputy head of Libyan intelligence at the time of the Lockerbie bombing, and then head, before becoming foreign minister in 2009. The intelligence agency was responsible for tracking down and killing regime opponents outside the country.

When the uprising against Col Gaddafi’s rule began, he was still very much part of the inner circle. He gave angry press conferences in the Rixos Hotel, where journalists have been lodged in Tripoli, to denounce foreign interference. But just a few days later he negotiated safe passage to London with MI6. The British intelligence services had long regarded Mr Koussa as an “asset”.

Nevertheless, his presence in Britain led to demands for legal action. (...)

He eats regularly from the £35 all-you-can-eat buffet, though he is also said to have a liking for the expensive Il Teatro Italian restaurant. Both have views over the hotel’s swimming pools and private beach, and the yacht marina next door.

It is not clear who is paying. He was originally a guest of the Qatari government, but he also had his private assets unfrozen as a reward for defecting. He occasionally relaxes in the lobby, accompanied always by one of a number of men who are clearly intelligence minders – they are dressed in Western style in jeans and T-shirts, and work on iPads.

When The Daily Telegraph approached to request an interview, a minder snapped his fingers, and within seconds a group of kandoura-wearing Qataris on duty in the lobby formed a protective shield.

“I am a little too busy to talk now,” Mr Koussa said. He had previously been reading a newspaper. Mr Koussa’s life of luxury reflects a dilemma in how to treat renegades from the Gaddafi regime.

Whitehall officials privately express fears that other Libyans would be deterred from defecting if Mr Koussa faced charges for his past role.

Yet, many Libyan exiles and the families of Lockerbie victims are outraged to see corrupt members of the former regime freely taking up senior positions with the opposition.

In Mr Koussa’s case, the situation is complicated because of his relationship with MI6. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he had not been given immunity from prosecution, yet the Foreign Office said as far as it was concerned Mr Koussa was free to come and go.

Political sources have said that the decision to allow him to leave was made “in the interests of national security”.

Moussa Koussa allowed to leave UK

[What follows is excerpted from a report in The Guardian on this date in 2011:]

Families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have accused the British government of "betrayal" after it allowed Moussa Koussa, the former Libyan foreign minister, to leave the UK to attend an international conference.

Koussa, who defected to Britain at the end of last month, was en route to Doha in Qatar on Tuesday, where an international conference on the future of Libya is to be held with representatives from the Benghazi-based opposition.

He is expected to return to the UK after the conference, but is free to travel as he pleases.

Brian Flynn, the brother of JP Flynn, who died in the 1988 attack and now organises the Victims of Pan Am 103 Incorporated campaign group in New York, said the UK authorities had "crossed a line" by allowing Koussa to attend the conference and thereby suggest he is a peace negotiator rather than, as they believe, a key instigator of the bombing.

"I think the British are being played by him … he has convinced them he can be valuable in this process, but he is not the suave diplomat in the suit sitting on the sidelines, he is one of the key guys who mastermined [the bombing of] Pan Am flight 103," Flynn said.

"He is a stated enemy of the British government. Our feeling is that the British government gave a nod to Lockerbie by questioning him two days before this conference, but that feels disingenuous. The Scottish and American prosecutors on Lockerbie are being betrayed by the politicians and the diplomats. Cameron has been good on Libya, but this sounds an awful lot like Tony Blair is back in charge." (...)

It is understood Koussa spent a week being debriefed by MI6 at a safehouse before being allowed to go free. He was questioned by Dumfries and Galloway police about the 1988 bombing, in which 270 people died, though was he was not a suspect.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, had insisted that Koussa would not be given immunity from prosecution.

He was helped to defect by MI6 after leaving Tripoli for Tunisia on what was initially described as a private visit.

Jean Berkley, co-ordinator of the UK Families Flight 103 group, who lost her 29-year old son Alistair when the Pan Am flight was blown up in mid-air, said she was mystified by the decision to let Koussa travel.

"It is very unexpected," she said. "Is he the basis of a new Libyan opposition, or what? He doesn't seem a very suitable person. Our aim is always to get more of the truth and we want a full public inquiry. Koussa must have some interesting knowledge. It is hard to know what to make of it. We will wait and see and watch with interest." (...)

Koussa's links to the UK go back to the period when he was deputy foreign minister in the mid-1990s and was involved in talks that revealed the Gaddafi regime's past support for the IRA. He was head of Libya's foreign intelligence service in the 1990s – after the Lockerbie bombing. He was also involved in still inconclusive talks about the 1984 murder of Constable Fletcher.

In 2003 he played a pivotal role in talks about surrendering Libya's programme for weapons of mass destruction – the decision which paved the way for Gaddafi's temporary rehabilitation with the west. In 2009 he took part in negotiations over the controversial return home of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

Koussa denies Pan Am 103 involvement

[This is the headline over a news item published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.  It reads as follows:]

Former Libyan intelligence Chief Moussa Koussa has issued a statement denying any involvement in the Pan Am 103 atrocity, affirming for the first time the denials attributed to him from former father of the House Tam Dalyell and Saif Gadaffi, who both also said that Koussa was not involved in the event.

Koussa, who was questioned in a highly choreographed move from the Crown Office, was not detained when he was interviewed in March this year. The Crown Office have revealed nothing about what was discussed at the interview, or whether they believed Koussa had a role to play in the events.

"I also had no involvement of any kind or knowledge of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 or the murder of WPC Fletcher in 1984. I have voluntarily assisted the relevant investigatory authorities with their inquiries in relation to these matters," Koussa said in a statement today.

"I had no involvement in Libya's intelligence and security organisations until my appointment as Head of the External Security Organisation (ESO) in 1994. This was Libya's foreign intelligence agency.

"My appointment reflected Libya's new foreign policy to make a break with the past and my wide experience had placed me in a good position to begin rebuilding fractured international relations. As a result I was responsible for a number of key negotiations and initiatives that improved international relations and led to the lifting of UN Security Council and US sanctions which had been damaging to the Libyan people."

Koussa's statement was made in response to claims broadcast by the BBC that he was personally involved in torturing detainees, a claim he denies.

Koussa previously said the Pan Am 103 event was "none of my doing," a position supported by Saif Gadaffi.

[The full text of Moussa Koussa's statement can be read here.]

Moussa Koussa to be interviewed by Crown and police

[This is the heading over a press release issued today by the Scottish National Party. It reads as follows:]

Welcoming the defection of former Libyan Foreign Minister Mr Moussa Koussa, and the statements that they wish to interview him by the Crown Office and Dumfries & Galloway policy, First Minister and Scottish National Party leader Mr Alex Salmond said:

“Moussa Koussa’s defection is a very welcome development, and a clear sign that the Gaddafi regime is decaying from within.

“The Crown Office have confirmed to the UK Government that the prosecuting and investigating authorities in Scotland wish to interview Mr Koussa and pursue all relevant lines of inquiry, which is an extremely positive step forward. Mr Koussa may well have important information to reveal which can assist what has always remained a live investigation.

“Megrahi was convicted by a Scottish Court on the basis that he was a Libyan intelligence officer, and that he did not act alone. This welcome announcement by the Crown Office, and the intention of Dumfries & Galloway police to interview him, will hopefully lead to further information and lines of inquiry coming to light about the Lockerbie atrocity.”

[I am not as sure as Alex Salmond appears to be that this is a conventional defection, as opposed to a diplomatic manoeuvre. I would be amazed if the Scottish investigating and prosecuting authorities got access to Moussa any time soon or, for that matter, tried very hard to do so.]

Vincent Cannistraro on Moussa Koussa

[I am grateful to reader of this blog for drawing my attention to this report from 31 March on the American WLTX website. It reads in part:]

Moussa Koussa, the Libyan official who British officials said resigned Wednesday after travelling to England, was a "key organizer" of the bombing, the Central Intelligence Agency's lead investigator into the bombing told CBS News Thursday. All 259 people on the plane and 11 people on the ground were killed when the plane crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, Dec. 21, 1988.

Vincent Cannistraro, who led the CIA bombing investigation, told CBS News that Qaddafi has long been suspected of initiating the attack.

"Yes, Moussa Koussa was personally responsible for the actual organization of it," said Cannistraro. "The orders to do it clearly came from Muammar Qaddafi himself as everything that happened in Libya over the years did originate with Qaddafi himself."

When Koussa defected to England, he brought with him secrets of his decades-long relationship with Quaddafi. Koussa was once Qadaffi's intelligence chief and is believed to know the intricate details of the Libyan leader's involvement with terrorism.

"Moussa is a person with a lot of blood on his hands over many years," Cannistraro said.

Memories of Moussa…

[This is the heading over an item posted yesterday on Ben Six’s blog Back Towards the Locus.  It reads as follows:]

Two years ago, Moussa Koussa, the Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, did something interesting. He drove into Tunisia, boarded a private jet and flew to Farnborough Airfield in England. Libyan sources insisted that he had left the country on a diplomatic mission but the British authorities claimed that he was disenchanted with his employers and considering his resignation.

Few Britons would have known who he was the day before but now they knew him as a figure of tremendous evil. Politicians and commentators suggested that his defection was similar to that of Rudolf Hess. He was, Libyan rebels told us, with apparent justice, a crook whose hands were stained with the blood of his countrymen. British sources also alleged that he had masterminded the Lockerbie bombings, and had been involved in the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. It seemed that we had a man who was both big and bad. Boris Johnson summed up the feelings of the moment by going on Question Time and saying that if there was the slightest evidence against him, he should be arrested.

Koussa was interviewed by the intelligence services, and by Scottish investigators of the Pan Am bombing. Then the European Union, on the urgings of the British, lifted its travel and economic sanctions against the man and he promptly boarded a plane and flew to Qatar. There was a kind of dazed silence. Relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing complained bitterly but the press, having informed us that he was a murderer and probable terrorist, seemed to lose their interest in him. The Telegraph did track him down to a hotel in Doha, and found him swanning about under the protection of the Qataris; eating at expensive Italian restaurants and generally enjoying life.

We have heard almost nothing of the fellow since. The last that I heard, he was settling in Jordan.

Why Moussa Koussa was allowed in and out remains mysterious. He must have offered the government or its agencies something valuable. The Sunday Express alleged, while he was still in Britain, that he had a close working relationship with MI6, while theIndependent, noting the British and Libyan collaboration over “rendition” policies, suggested that he “held a ‘smoking gun’”. Neither they nor other papers pursued these accusations.

It seems very grubby that Koussa’s Libyan victims have been denied justice, especially if he won immunity through his work in some of the grubbiest episodes of the “War on Terror”. It seems very grubby that victims of Lockerbie were led to believe that he could answer the questions that have dogged them for almost a quarter of a century, only to see him disappear and leave more questions in his wake. Over eighteen months after the fall of Gadaffi, and with no evidence of Libyan guilt having emerged, the perpetrators of the bombings remain shrouded in mystery. If they could be found elsewhere, a chance to eliminate suspects has been thrown away. If they did come from the Maghreb it is quite possible that the state discarded not merely a chance to prove this to us but a chance to prosecute one of them. For what?

Who knows. What vexes me is not simply the fact that our government is engaged in such suspicious and discomfiting affairs but that the journalists whose task it is to explain such events have shown no interest in them. If, as they informed us, there were grounds on which to compare the man to Rudolf Hess it is as if Churchill, Eden and so on had let the one-time Deputy Führer sail off to Brazil, yet few of them complained and none of them seem to have made an effort to discover why they did it. How often, one has to ask, do they fail to make such efforts? As on other occasions, we are left with memory, and curiosity, and questions.

[The Lockerbie Case’s articles on the Moussa Koussa affair can be accessed by clicking here.]

Libya & Lockerbie: secrets for sale

[This is the heading over an article just posted on Scottish national treasure Ian Bell's Prospero blog. A shorter version appears in The Sunday Herald. The blog version reads as follows:]

Moussa Koussa, Libya’s foreign minister until last Wednesday night, must be giving Her Majesty’s government a lot to think about. His insights into the state of the Gaddafi regime – if reliable – will be receiving undivided attention. His opinions on what might happen next will be scrutinised in minute detail. Above all, the question of what this defector really hopes to gain will surely keep MI6 busy for many an hour.

And then there’s Lockerbie. As the indefatigable Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, has already said, “This is a guy who knows everything”. Koussa’s flight is therefore “a fantastic day for those who seek the truth”. Specifically, Dr Swire wants to hear the former head of the Libyan Bureau for External Security explain the how and why, if Libya was responsible, of the atrocity. After almost 23 years of evasion, obstruction and power politics, at home and abroad, that’s little enough to ask.

Some caution is required, however. Koussa is not just the latest in a succession of rodents quitting the foundering SS Gaddafi. The charge sheet is a long one. The Libyan rebel administration in Benghazi wants him returned for trial for bloody crimes that have nothing to do with Lockerbie. His alleged involvement in terrorism and internal repression goes back a very long way. If the Colonel is due a visit to the International Criminal Court, so is Koussa.

Yet here he is, in effect, handing himself over to British custody without – so we are told – preconditions. We are further assured that immunity from prosecution has not been granted. So let’s get this straight: he has preferred to flee Tripoli while Gaddafi yet survives and chosen to risk the possibility – it should be a certainty – of a trial for mass murder in a Scottish court, and much else besides? Either he has proof that would stand every Lockerbie allegation on its head, or he is not much of a terrorist mastermind. Or things are not as they seem.

I’ve been wondering about that. Consider, for one example, a report from the Washington Post dated February 24. This described Koussa as “a key CIA contact in the war on terror and the removal of [Gaddafi’s] weapons of mass destruction”. The foreign minister was central, in other words, to the brief rehabilitation of the regime. Such were his crimes, according to the Post, “he cannot defect to the opposition like other top Libyan officials”. The consensus a month ago was that Koussa “may have no option now but to go down with the ship”.

Clearly, the so-called “envoy of death” had other ideas. Having been Gaddafi’s “point man in clandestine meetings with top CIA and British officials” he may have lost the dictator’s trust. He may therefore have gained some trust elsewhere, or secured a stock of that commodity some time ago. Flying into London with (supposedly) no guarantee of immunity from prosecution over Lockerbie and a host of other terrorist acts suggests a certain confidence, if nothing else.

Koussa could tell us, as Dr Swire says, a very great deal. For one thing, he was said to be at the heart of Libyan efforts to secure the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, personally issuing threats – the only relevant word – to Scottish ministers. He would know better than most what went on. He would certainly know why al-Megrahi came to be the only person convicted of the murders of 270 people in December of 1988, the shambolic legal process that sealed and resealed the conviction, and the persistent efforts of various governments, Britain’s above all, to deflect serious questions.

Instead, we have a “key CIA contact” who is either prepared to deal with his responsibility, if any, for Lockerbie, or a man well known to “British officials” who foresees no difficulties in that regard. William Hague, foreign secretary, reiterates his refusal to offer an immunity from British or international justice. Hague fails to clarify a more important point: is Koussa therefore under arrest? If not, why not?

Dumfries and Galloway Police certainly want a word, as does the Crown Office. [RB: So they say.] Both would be obliged to seek an interview with any member of the Libyan regime. That doesn’t exactly put an inquiring mind at rest, however. Our prosecution service has not been exactly quick on its toes when previous opportunities for interview/investigation have presented themselves.

When was a request lodged, for one example, to interview Mustafa Abdul Jalil, former Libyan justice minister and the first defector to claim to know “for certain” about the planning and execution of the 1988 atrocity? Lockerbie remains a scandal and an open wound because, to put it no higher, domestic agencies have failed repeatedly to resolve the issues at stake.

But Koussa is different, in any case, from all the other defectors who have told the western media what the media want to hear where Lockerbie is concerned. Simply to say “Gaddafi did it” when Nato aircraft are supporting a rebellion and your neck is at risk is not the same, not remotely the same, as providing chapter, verse, eye-witness testimony, and an explanation of your personal involvement, if any, in mass murder.

So another question falls to Hague. Can the British public, the Scottish public in particular, be assured that Koussa will not be leaving these shores, that there is no deal in place concerning the Lockerbie atrocity or any other crimes? The government has already conceded that Gaddafi might be allowed to slip away into exile if he yields to the Libyan rebellion. Is Koussa to be granted the same consideration?

Or is he, as some suspect, only in Britain to negotiate such an arrangement on behalf of the whole Tripoli gang? Does that also merit an “amnesty”? Not where Lockerbie is concerned, even if playing nice with Koussa is being presented, in all media outlets, as a necessary stratagem to persuade others to desert the Colonel.

An amnesty and a plane ticket might be the pragmatic way to prevent further bloodshed in Libya, even if it did little for the standing of the international court. As an answer to those bereaved by Lockerbie, however, it would count as (yet another) insult. If Koussa has resigned as foreign minister, as the government claims, he has no diplomatic immunity. If his crimes are as extensive as his victims and his enemies allege, he should be facing arrest irrespective of Pan Am 103. An “unscheduled visit”, as former foreign secretary Jack Straw creepily describes it, hardly fits the case.

Never mind the Dumfries and Galloway force: the Scottish government should be saying as much. A prior claim exists, in the names of 270 individuals, that in no sense impinges on the progress of the Libyan rebellion. The Edinburgh political and legal coterie can parrot the line – another fine little mystery – that al-Megrahi’s conviction was and remains safe. The fact is that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), after four years of study, found fully six grounds (still buried beneath legal manure) for doubt.

For Scotland, and for Scots law, that remains the heart of the thing. The $3 million paid by US authorities to a pair of Maltese “witnesses” who could not remember the weather, far less a face, might be explained. The conduct of the Camp Zeist trial – sufficiently contentious to have the UN’s observer, Professor Hans Kochler, decrying a “spectacular miscarriage” – could even be overlooked. The presence of intelligence officers in the well of the court itself could be chalked up to bitter – if infinitely suggestive – experience. But the SCCRC referral hangs over all talk of justice.

Koussa, if anyone, is central to everything where Lockerbie is concerned. Dr Swire is dead right about that. I only hesitate over celebrations because I find it hard to believe no deal has been done. The former foreign minister may have been in the frying pan. Would he really jump into the fire, unprompted, when there is serious talk of Gaddafi being allowed to escape into exile? Or are we supposed to believe that Koussa has grown himself a conscience?

With luck, some parliamentarian will be asking Hague these questions before long. Where Lockerbie is concerned it is not enough, and never was enough, just to say “Gaddafi did it”. If the order was his, the order was followed. How – for the purposes of argument – and by whom? It is a long time since blind obedience to orders was last accepted as any sort of excuse.

The British government’s approach to this little problem is liable to be fascinating. David Cameron has spent a great deal of parliamentary time condemning al-Megrahi’s release. He has said, repeatedly, that he would never have agreed to such a thing. He has dismissed the Scottish government’s arguments in favour of compassionate release. Our Dave is unflinching, by his own account, in matters of justice, terrorist crime and condign punishment. So let’s see, where Moussa Koussa is concerned, whether he is also consistent.

But consider: if the truth is ever allowed to escape, Koussa might not be the only double-dealer, home and abroad, who finds himself in an uncomfortable position. Yet again, I suspect, opinion is being nudged towards the belief that “Gaddafi did it” settles all questions. Simultaneously, a spurious Lockerbie “resolution” will be a handy distraction, no doubt, amid the Libyan aftermath.

And if Koussa winds up in the United States for the sake of “intelligence sharing” and old alliances, we will all be just a little wiser. Dr Swire and many others deserve better. But they always did.

More on Moussa

[The following are excerpts from a report in today's edition of The Telegraph:]

Moussa Koussa could help rebels in Libya from his five-star subsidised hotel in Qatar, Downing Street has suggested.

News of Mr Koussa's whereabouts came as the International Criminal Court yesterday issued arrest warrants for Col Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al–Islam and the intelligence chief Abdullah al–Senussi.

David Cameron's official spokesman said the Government wanted to see Mr Koussa help rebels in Libya from his base in Doha.

He said: "It is not for us to give a commentary on what Moussa Koussa is doing. We want to see him play his part in opposing the Libyan regime." (...)

The spokesman added: "We have also been clear that he will not be given any immunity from prosecution in this country."

Mr Koussa had "already been interviewed by Dumfries and Galloway police" over the Lockerbie bombing, he said.

In Parliament, a Conservative MP said he would be asking what level of financial support, if any, Britain had given Mr Koussa since he came to the UK after defecting from Col Gaddafi's regime.

Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow, said: "Allegedly this man has blood on his hands, and I hope very much that the British taxpayers are not subsidising him in any way."

Mr Koussa defected to Britain at the end of March but left for Qatar shortly afterwards to take part in a "Gulf contact group" meeting of countries hoping to resolve the Libya crisis.

He was expected to return to Britain, where he is facing calls for his prosecution over accusations ranging from the Lockerbie bombing to supplying arms to the IRA, but is currently showing no signs of doing so.

Ex-Gaddafi aide Moussa Koussa warns against civil war

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

The most high-profile minister to flee Libya has warned against the risks of civil war and the possibility of his country becoming "a new Somalia".

Speaking publicly for the first time since coming to the UK, Moussa Koussa told the BBC that the unity of Libya was essential to any settlement.

His comments came after rebels rejected an African Union ceasefire proposal.

The AU says Col Muammar Gaddafi has accepted the plan, but on Monday his forces attacked the city of Misrata. (...)

BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera said he was told Mr Koussa was not ready to be interviewed, but would give a prepared statement.

"I ask everybody to avoid taking Libya into civil war," Mr Koussa said. "This would lead to so much blood and Libya would be a new Somalia."

"More than that, we refuse to divide Libya. The unity of Libya is essential to any solution and settlement for Libya."

Libya's Minister for Social Affairs, Ibrahim Zarouk al-Sharif, said he could not comment on Mr Koussa's statement while the former foreign minister was "captured" in a hostile country.

Mr Koussa is a former head of Libyan intelligence and has been accused of being involved in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. (...)

In his statement on Monday he said he had been "devoted" to his work for 30 years under Col Gaddafi, and was confident that it was serving the Libyan people.

However, he said, after recent events "things changed and I couldn't continue".

"I know that what I did to resign will cause me problems, but I'm ready to make that sacrifice for the sake of my country," he said.

He added that the solution in Libya would come from the Libyans themselves, through discussion and democratic dialogue.

The UK and its allies have a responsibility to ease the dialogue so that Libyans can build a democratic country, he said.

The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen said Mr Koussa's decision to speak in Arabic suggested he wanted to send a message back home - to both sides.

[A report from The Press Association news agency can be read here.]

Moussa Koussa and the Scottish police and prosecutors

[The following is from a report in The Independent today:]

Libya's acting foreign minister flew into Athens last night on a mission from Muammar Gaddafi which his Greek government hosts said meant the regime was now seeking an end to the fighting.

Disilllusioned with what he sees as the betrayal by France, Britian and Italy because of the NATO-led military intervention, the Libyan leader may see Greece—with which he has long enjoyed good relations—as a possible diplomatic conduit to the West.

After Abdelati Obeidi met Prime Minister George Papandreou, Mr Obeidi's Greek counterpart, Dimitri Droutsas, said last night: "It seems that the Libyan authorities are seeking a solution." Though there were few details of what, if anything, the regime is proposing, Mr Papandreou has been in touch with Western governments over the past few days. Mr Obeidi is expected to travel on to Malta and Turkey. [RB: An article on the Aljazeera website on the Obeidi mission can be read here.]

Meanwhile, Scottish officials have arrived in London to question Libya's former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, on what he knows about the Lockerbie bombing. The interview, which may take place today, comes as MPs and families of victims of the attack demand that Mr Koussa should not be granted immunity from prosecution, even if there have been attempts to encourage others in the Gaddafi regime to defect.

Despite reports that Mr Koussa is named in court documents as overseeing Libya's supply of Semtex explosive to the Provisional IRA, British officials will seek to delay any legal moves against him, arguing that the priority is to oust Colonel Gaddafi.

[The other UK media that I have been able to access online go no further than to state that Scottish officials will today discuss with UK Foreign Office officials the possibility of interviewing Moussa Koussa. There is no suggestion that any such interview will take place today or, indeed, any time soon. For example, the report on the BBC News website can be read here; that on the Sky News website can be read here; that in The Scotsman (which is misleadingly headlined) can be read here; and the Press Association news agency report here.

However, the report in the Daily Record contains the following:]

A young Scottish prosecutor is leading efforts to question the high-profile Libyan defector Musa Kusa over the Lockerbie bombing.

Lindsey Miller, head of the Crown Office Serious and Organised Crime Division, has been liaising with families of the Lockerbie victims and wrote to them promising to pursue Gaddafi's former spy chief.

Lawyers and police could start interviewing Kusa today.

Miller, 39, is the senior procurator fiscal heading the investigation into the terrorist attack on Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 that killed 270 people.

In an email sent to relatives of the victims after Kusa arrived in Britain, Miller said her staff had notified the Foreign Office that "we wish to interview [Kusa] regarding any information he may have concerning the bombing of Pan Am flight 103."

She added that the bomb probe "remains open and we will pursue all relevant lines of inquiry in conjunction with our US counterparts". [RB: Regrettably, the Scottish police and prosecutors have a very narrow concept of what is "relevant" -- only material that supports the Malta-Frankfurt-Heathrow scenario.]

Representatives of the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary are to meet Foreign Office officials today to discuss access to the Libyan foreign minister.

Last night, Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill said: "They'll be seeking to interview him tomorrow.

"It's not for me to interfere with due process here. I have to stand back and leave that to the relevant authorities, but they've been there waiting in London since Friday." (...)

Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday gave the green light to the Crown Office after denying there would be an amnesty deal with Kusa if he helped topple Gaddafi.

Hague said: "It is a good thing, of course, where the Crown Office in Scotland wish to talk to him about what's happened in the past such as at Lockerbie.

"My officials are discussing with the Crown Office how to go about that. That's not a bad thing either - we want more information about past events."

Hague insisted there is no deal with Kusa. He said: "The Prime Minister and I have made clear there is no immunity from prosecution, there will be no immunity, he hasn't asked for that, there isn't a deal."

MacAskill added: "I welcome the commitment of the Foreign Secretary to allow them access and I hope that this provides further clarity on the Lockerbie atrocity."

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.

Questions remain about links with ex-spy chief

[This is the headline over a report (behind the paywall) in today's edition of The Times.  It reads as follows:]

The revelation that Moussa Koussa met top British and US officials at a Cotswolds hotel in 2003 will fuel suspicions that the Government shielded the former Libyan spy chief from prosecution after he defected to Britain in March.

For three decades Mr Koussa was a member of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle. He was expelled from Britain in 1980 for ordering the assassination of regime opponents. He was suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other terrorist atrocities. He was Libya’s spy chief for 15 years, and witnesses recently told the BBC’s Panorama that he was present when 1,200 inmates were massacred at Abu Salim prison, Tripoli, in 1996.

Since 2001, however, he was a key player in Libya’s rapprochement with the West, negotiating his country’s abandonment of weapons of mass destruction and providing intelligence on al-Qaeda.

On visits to Britain he met officials at places such as The Travellers Club in Pall Mall and, as The Times reveals today, the Bay Tree Hotel in Burford, where he negotiated with Sir Mark Allen, then head of counter-terrorism at MI6 and now an adviser to BP, and Steve Kappes, a CIA agent who resigned as deputy director last year.

The cosiness of the relationship was laid embarrassingly bare in letters found in Mr Koussa’s office after the fall of Tripoli in August. In one, Sir Mark trumpeted Britain’s cooperation in forcibly repatriating a regime opponent, saying that was “the least we could do for you”.

When Mr Koussa fled Libya on March 30 he was flown in a private plane to Farnborough Airport and taken to a safe house.

David Cameron and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, both denied that he had been granted immunity from prosecution, and he was questioned by Lockerbie investigators. But within days the EU unfroze his assets at Britain’s request and he left for Qatar. He has lived in the Four Seasons Hotel, Qatar, ever since.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office insists there were no grounds for detaining him. But officials also accept that prosecuting Mr Koussa would have deterred other defections, and silenced a priceless source of inside information about Gaddafi’s regime.“I can’t say there was a deal, but it was very convenient for the Government that Moussa Koussa moved to Qatar,” Guma el-Gamaty, the former coordinator of Libya’s National Transitional Council in Britain, said. “If he’d stayed any longer the Lockerbie investigators were coming in to demand he should be investigated.”

UK Foreign Secretary speaks prior to flight to Qatar

[What follows are excerpts from a report on the BBC News website on an interview with Foreign Secretary William Hague prior to his departure for the gathering in Doha.]

The UK cannot put a timescale on its involvement in the conflict in Libya, the foreign secretary has said.

William Hague told the BBC it was not possible to predict when the operation would end but said air strikes "saved thousands of lives" and Col Muammar Gaddafi's rule "has no future". (...)

He and other delegates are meeting in Qatar to discuss Libya, amid calls for Nato to intensify its campaign.

Speaking on his way to the talks, Mr Hague told BBC Radio 4's Today programme "Are we able to say which week these things will come to an end? Of course not, because it is a fast-moving and unpredictable situation.

"But I think it is clear that the Gaddafi regime has no future... the question is how and when it unravels."

He also spoke of the effect which Nato air strikes have had so far, insisting that this should not be underestimated.

"Thousands of lives have been saved in places like Benghazi and possibly in Misrata," he said.

"We would now be looking at a pariah state completely under the control of Col Gaddafi, destabilising an already unstable Middle East, if we had not taken the action we have taken."

Former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who fled to the UK late last month, is among those attending the talks.

He is due to meet rebels and the Qatari government on the sidelines of the talks and offer "insights" on the current situation in Libya, according to British officials.

Mr Koussa is a former head of Libyan intelligence and has been accused of being involved in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

The foreign secretary defended the decision to let Mr Koussa travel to the summit.

Mr Hague said: "We behave according to the law. The matter of arrests is for prosecuting authorities and police; that is not for ministers to decide.

"He is not detained; he came here of his own volition. If he was under arrest, he wouldn't be allowed to leave."

[The following are two paragraphs from a report just published on the CNN website:]

Among the high-profile attendees in Doha is Gadhafi's former intelligence chief and foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who fled to Britain last month. It's unclear how opposition leaders will receive Koussa's efforts in Doha.

On Tuesday, Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, deputy chairman of Libya's Transitional National Council, did not explicitly reject the idea of meeting Koussa but said such a meeting was "not on the agenda."

A clear-headed analysis?

[The following are two letters from today’s edition of the Sunday Herald:]

John Laverie may find it illuminating to peruse John Ashton's book Megrahi: You Are My Jury (Libya's gulag: questions linger, Letters, June 19). It contains a number of references to Moussa Koussa, former head of Libyan intelligence. Ashton states that Koussa was debriefed at an MI6 safe house in the spring of 2011 and shortly after was interviewed about Lockerbie by the Scottish police. He was then allowed to leave the country and his assets were unfrozen. Ashton suggests that one obvious reason for Koussa not being arrested was that the UK Government was well aware that neither he nor Gaddafi had anything to do with Lockerbie. A less obvious explanation was that Koussa was a long-time MI6 asset. On March 30, 2011, the Daily Telegraph stated: "As head of Libyan external intelligence, Mr Koussa was an MI6 asset for almost two decades."

In his book, John Ashton recounts the experience of Martin Cadman who lost his son Bill in the Lockerbie bombing. In February 1990, Mr Cadman was invited to the US embassy in London to meet the members of a presidential commission established to examine aviation security policy with particular reference to Lockerbie. At the end of the meeting Mr Cadman was taken aside by one of the commission's seven members who said to him: "Your government and ours know exactly what happened [regarding Lockerbie] but they are never going to tell." Alan Woodcock

I read John S Laverie's letter with particular interest as I had just finished Kenny MacAskill's book, The Lockerbie Bombing – The Search For Justice (Libya's gulag: question linger, Letters, June 19). MacAskill, who was Justice Secretary and responsible for making the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, brings clarity to a subject muddied by conspiracy theories – he covers the issues of rendition, the involvement of MI6 and the role of Moussa Koussa, and I thoroughly recommend the book to Mr Laverie and all those interested in a clear-headed analysis of the Lockerbie atrocity. Ian D Cochrane

[RB: Mr Cochrane’s view that Kenny MacAskill’s book brings clarity to the subject is a minority one. Reviews of the book can be found here and here and here and here.]

Presiding over a charade

[What follows is the text of a letter by John S Laverie published in the Sunday Herald today:]

In a chilling account of the Gaddafi regime, David Pratt refers to the congratulatory correspondence sent by the MI6 chief officer, Sir Mark Allen, to Moussa Koussa, head of Libyan intelligence (1994-2009) (Rendition, torture, MI6 and the secrets of Libya's gulag, June 12).

The recipient of these letters, which proved that MI6 had been complicit in the abduction and extradition of Libyan dissidents to Tripoli to face years of torture and probable death, defected during the overthrow of colonel Gaddafi and fled to Britain in March 2011. He was immediately taken into police custody, whereupon the then foreign secretary, William Hague, appeared on television to announce that Koussa would be interrogated by MI6.

Crucially, Koussa was also to be interviewed by Scottish prosecutors in relation to Lockerbie, leading to the possibility of a breakthrough, much trumpeted by Hague. Koussa, a close friend of Gaddafi's since their student days, had, after all, been instrumental in the eventual handover of Al-Megrahi for trial, while welcoming the latter's compassionate release nine years later. There followed a deafening silence on the outcome of Koussa's interrogation, and he was not heard of again until five months later when a Channel 4 camera crew tracked him down to a hotel foyer in Qatar. Had he been allowed to leave London with impunity?

If, in March 2011, William Hague (now Baron of Richmond) and the Scottish prosecutors had good intentions to discover the truth about Lockerbie, and were not simply presiding over a charade, then they owe an explanation and an apology to the families of the Lockerbie victims still in pursuit of justice. Absolutely no-one believes that Moussa Koussa had no story to tell.

Moussa Koussa gets UK visa and access to his oil millions

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Daily Express. It reads in part:]

Colonel Gaddafi’s terror chief Moussa Koussa was yesterday granted an asylum seeker’s visa to stay in the UK – and full access to the millions he has stashed away in secret bank accounts.

MPs and Lockerbie families condemned the move to allow Libya’s “envoy of death” the right to come and go as he pleases for six months after a request to the Home Office by Foreign Secretary William Hague.

And the decision, ordered by the EU, to lift sanctions on the spy chief’s frozen assets – thought to contain millions from Libya’s booming oil sales – was branded as “astonishing”.

The move is understood to have been proposed by Mr Hague when he met European counterparts on Tuesday in an effort to encourage others to quit Gaddafi’s regime. A Treasury source said: “It sends a powerful signal to other potential defectors that, if they are currently on a list, they could be taken off that list if they do things differently.” But Tory MP Robert Halfon, whose family fled Libya when Gaddafi seized power, said: “I am astonished that the EU has decided to give immunity from sanctions to an alleged war criminal.

“The only place Mr Koussa should be travelling is to the Hague to face prosecution at the international court for war criminals.

“Many British people will be hugely concerned that these privileges are being granted to this man.”

Defending Koussa’s visa, a senior Whitehall source insisted there was “no deal, no immunity”. He added: “Koussa may be a nasty piece of work, but he could be key to Gaddafi’s removal. He needs temporary security here so he will work with us.” The Home Office has given Koussa a “Discretionary Leave to Remain” visa offered to asylum seekers pursuing their case to obtain a legitimate refugee status.

[Compare this with the following excerpt from a report headlined "Musa Kusa in UK snub" in today's edition of The Sun:]

Mad Dog Gaddafi's henchman Musa Kusa is refusing to return to Britain, it was claimed last night.

The tyrant's former spymaster has been handed back his passport and cash.

He was allowed to travel freely to Qatar on Wednesday and no longer has his assets frozen. And last night EU sanctions on him were formally lifted.

But Kusa - who defected from Gaddafi's regime last month - is refusing to quit Qatar in a bid to avoid prosecution over the Lockerbie bombing, say sources.

Kusa, 62, flew to the Arab state for international talks about Libya. Broadcaster Al Arabiya reported that Kusa fears the wrath of the families of the 270 Lockerbie victims who perished in the 1988 outrage.

American Susan Cohen, 72 - whose daughter Theo was on board the doomed flight - said: "I am not surprised. Kusa is an evil, evil man who effectively deserves to be hanged. He should not have been allowed to leave Britain."

The Foreign Office said Kusa is "a free individual who can travel to and from the UK", adding: "He has voluntarily agreed to assist all inquiries."

Blow for Gathafi as foreign minister defects

[This is the headline over a report published today on the Middle East Online website. It reads in part:]

Libya's Moamer Gathafi suffered another blow Wednesday when his foreign minister flew into Britain telling officials he no longer wanted to represent the Tripoli regime.

Mussa Kussa arrived at Farnborough Airfield, west of London, on Wednesday, a Foreign Office statement said.

"He travelled here under his own free will. He has told us that he is resigning his post," it added.

"Mussa Kussa is one of the most senior figures in Gathafi's government and his role was to represent the regime internationally, something that he is no longer willing to do," the British statement continued.

"We encourage those around Gathafi to abandon him and embrace a better future for Libya that allows political transition and real reform that meets the aspirations of the Libyan people," it concluded. (...)

Washington quickly hailed Kussa's departure as a major blow to the Gathafi regime.

"This is a very significant defection and an indication that people around Gathafi think the writing's on the wall," a senior official in the US administration said.

Kussa is credited as having been a key figure in Libya's efforts to improve its international reputation before to the current crisis.

The 59-year-old was installed as Gathafi's foreign minister in March 2009 after having served as the head of Libya's intelligence agency from 1994.

One of Gathafi's trusted advisers, Kussa is believed to have convinced the leader to dismantle his nuclear weapons programme, opening the way for the lifting of US trade sanctions.

Earlier in his career, in 1980, Kussa served as ambassador to Britain, but was expelled after saying he wanted to eliminate the "enemies" of the Libyan regime in Britain.

[A profile of Moussa Koussa in today's edition of the Daily Telegraph contains the following:]

The former spy chief's resignation also comes at a critical time in the coalition's attempts to dislodge Col Gaddafi, as the rebels are retreating under fresh onslaughts and Whitehall sources suggested they were unlikely to win without arms or training from outside.

So his information and contacts among Col Gaddafi's generals will be all the more valuable.

However, the former head of Libya's external intelligence, was the mastermind accused of planning the Lockerbie bombing and any attempts to rehabilitate him are likely to be an exceedingly hot potato.

Mr Koussa has been a close confidant of Col Gaddafi's for 30 years and helped secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

He was expelled from London in 1980 after giving an extraordinary newspaper interview when he was the head of the embassy in which he said two Libyan dissidents living in London would be killed.

Speaking outside the Libyan embassy in St James’s Square, Mr Koussa told The Times: “The revolutionary committees have decided last night to kill two more people in the United Kingdom. I approve of this."

He returned to Libya after being given 48 hours to leave the UK, where he was accused of funding terrorist groups.

Mr Koussa was named by intelligence sources in the mid-1990s as the possible architect of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people, and the blowing up the following year of a French airliner in central Africa in which 170 people died.

Mr Koussa, who is now 61, travelled to Britain to meet British and Scottish government officials on at least two occasions as Mr Megrahi’s health deteriorated.

[A report in today's edition of The Guardian contains the following:]

Britain and the US have been in regular contact with him in recent days, mainly through intelligence sources. Probably more than any other senior official inside the Libyan regime, Kousa is seen as the key figure who persuaded Gaddafi to make a deal with British intelligence agencies to stop developing weapons of mass destruction in return for the ending of its pariah status.

However, his relationship with Britain in the past has been far from convivial. Kousa has previously been seen as one of the controlling forces behind the Lockerbie bombing and it was not clear whether he was seeking political asylum.

In 1980, he was expelled from the UK and, for 15 years, he was head of Libyan foreign intelligence – including in the period of the Lockerbie bombing. He has always denied Libya was involved in the bombing.

[Of the various officials of the Gaddafi regime that I met between 1993 and 2009, Moussa Koussa was the most frightening. It was he who, in January 1994, signed on behalf of the Libyan regime the letter confirming that they approved of the scheme that I had submitted to Megrahi and Fhimah's lawyers and to the Libyan Government regarding a non-jury trial in the Netherlands.]

Lockerbie: lawyers, guns & money

[This is the heading over another brilliant article posted today on Ian Bell's Prospero blog and a version of which will appear in tomorrow's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]

One of my favourite pictures is Raeburn’s portrait of Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn, once judge within the Court of Session. It’s there in a glance, cool as you like, direct from an age of reason. It says: here are my principles; convince me.

I once entertained a theory that most of Scotland’s high-end prose, Walter Scott’s most obviously, descended from Scots law. Years ago, I even tried to convince an audience that Robert Louis Stevenson could not have written nit-picking tales of moral difficulty without Hume and the Faculty of Advocates. They wondered what I was on about.

Scotland is soaked in the language of lawyers. After the churches and education, the law was the one inviolable (supposedly) thing we rescued from Union. We are a country of laws, of legal tradition, and of reasoned prose. Most of our politicians have been lawyers, and most of our hired legal hands have been political. They can’t help themselves.

Cockburn concludes his Memorials with the news that he’s getting on in the world. Thanks to the usual patronage, the boy from Edinburgh’s Hope Park is to be Solicitor-General. He writes: “I trust that we [Jeffrey had bagged Lord Advocate] shall do our duty. If we do, we cannot fail to do some good to Scotland. In the abuses of our representative and municipal systems alone, our predecessors have left us fields in which patriotism may exhaust itself”.

So, Cocky: what would you have made of Moussa Koussa?

Here we have an unresolved mass murder. Here we have a witness. Here we have (it is suggested) “abuses of our representative and municipal systems”. Here we have certain subservient protocols attendant to a treaty of Union. Still, one would wish to at least detain the witness, surely?

We get a legal letter instead. The indefatigable Brian Fitzpatrick writes, in timely fashion, to the oldest daily newspaper in the English-speaking world with a note of support, it seems, for a public inquiry into the Lockerbie atrocity.

Or rather, one from the Faculty suggests, there might be “scope” – Cockburn would have flinched – “for laying to rest some of the more egregious claims of the tribe of Lockerbie conspiracy theorists – those who have made a life’s work of the now unravelling assertion that somehow Libya and its senior operatives, including Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, were not to blame".

Send lawyers, as the song used to go, guns and money.

The brief then goes on to lavish praise on pillars of our legal temples. He suggests that the Camp Zeist trial was terribly hard – unpaid? – work for those who allowed security spooks to infest the well of the court. He overlooks the Socratic wisdom that entertained the bribing ($3 million to a pair of those crucial Maltese witnesses) of participants by American “authorities”. He does not trouble himself with forensic difficulties.

But, first and foremost, this lawyer nowhere mentions the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). It counts as a significant omission. It makes no odds to me whether “Gaddafi did it” or not. I just want to know what went wrong with Scots law, why the SCCRC found six reasons – after years of work, and 800 pages – for doubting the conviction of al Megrahi, and why the rest of us, we sometime citizens, are barred from knowledge granted as pub gossip to every lawyer in the land. And then told to forget about it.

“Conspiracy theorists” is neat. It suggests that anyone who might wonder about the habits of our legal-political establishment has problems – a ticklish inversion – with reality. It is meant to shut down argument. The conviction is as safe, it seems, as all those blasted, bloodied Lockerbie houses that no longer stand.

The real mistake was to believe that Gaddafi’s fall would give oxygen to the truth. Instead, in the blood and the mire, there’s a big carpet being unfurled, and a lot of sweeping going on. On this point, I am liable to sound repetitive: why isn’t Moussa Koussa under arrest?

More particularly: why has he not been taken into custody by officers from Dumfries & Galloway? Students of the Treaty of Union may take another view, but I had thought – certainly in the case of al Megrahi – that Scots law held sway. So why has our Crown Office been “negotiating” with the Foreign Office over this witness, of all witnesses?

Saif Gaddafi, heir to idiocy, says there are no secrets. Washington and London, he tells the BBC, know all there is to know about Lockerbie. Scotland’s lawyers, some of them, know exactly what he means. But Scotland’s people have been given no such advantages.

What was asked of Moussa Koussa? That’s not a complicated, nor legally compromised, question. Having won London’s sanction – ignoring questions of jurisdiction – what followed? Just state the question, or the area of inquiry: we have a right to know. Disclosure is in no sense be prejudicial to a possible trial, far less to a public inquiry.

The obvious fact is this: “Gaddafi did it” is not the point. The safety of a conviction, and the suborning of a legal system by security services is another, bigger, deal. Cockburn wouldn’t have sat still for it. Brian Fitzpatrick prefers a lesser prose.

You have to ask yourself: why does it still matter, and matter so much, to those who promenade around Parliament Hall? Why does it still, after all these years, infect every party? You might have thought, if naive, that an SNP government would be rushing to settle the Lockerbie business, if only to discomfit Labour placemen and Tory hacks. No chance.

Three hundred and odd strollers in the Faculty count for more, in Scottish public life, than any other constituency. Which is odd. Lockerbie wasn’t their doing. They did not infect the evidence. They didn’t nobble the politicians, or write the editorials, nor do a squalid deal in the desert. They were just legal cabs for hire.

Henry Cockburn saw them coming. I don’t even know if Memorials of His Time is in print. Still, the good judge had witty things to say about small countries and the profession of principle. The reason we don’t know about Lockerbie is this: the lawyers don’t like it. And they respond to argument by any means necessary.

How come? What worries them so much? Why has there been no public inquiry? Who – pace Fitzpatrick – would be harmed? Why isn’t Moussa Koussa under close arrest? Why does the government of Scotland, another party to the safety of an absurd conviction, fail to assert the rights of an independent legal code?

So: is Brian Fitzpatrick supporting a properly independent public inquiry into all that befell the Lockerbie prosecutions? He doesn’t quite say as much. Why not? Instead, he seems to believe that anyone in doubt over the independence of our judiciary has fallen in with “a tribe”.

I’d be interested in a test case. What would one propose, tomorrow, as a paid defence strategy – with an SCCRC judgement to hand – for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi? And how would the betting go, up at the courts, around the dockets, or by the Shirra’s seat, for that one?

Cockburn said: “In the abuses of our representative and municipal systems alone, our predecessors have left us fields in which patriotism may exhaust itself”. Two hundred and seventy were murdered, and still we fail them.