Gaddafi-era officials go on trial accused over Lockerbie case

[This is the headline over a report published today by the Reuters news agency.  It reads in part:]

Two senior officials under late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi went on trial on Monday accused of wasting public money by facilitating a compensation payment of more than $2 billion to families of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

The trial of the two men - former Foreign Minister Abdel-Ati al-Obeidi and former Secretary General of the General People's Congress [RB: and Libyan ambassador in London following restoration of diplomatic relations in 2001] Mohammed Zwai - was swiftly adjourned to give their legal team more time to prepare.

Zwai was the head of the legislature under Gaddafi, who was overthrown after an uprising last year and later killed.

Libya's new rulers, who aim to draw up a democratic constitution, are keen to try Gaddafi's family members and loyalists to show the country's citizens that those who helped Gaddafi stay in power for 42 years are being punished.

But human rights activists fret a weak central government and a relative lack of rule of law mean legal proceedings will not meet international standards.

The two men's appearance in the dock - 14 months after they were arrested - was brief.

"I refute these charges against me," Zwai told the court. Obedi also denied the charges.

The judge, whose name was not given, read out the charges against the duo, saying they were accused of arranging compensation worth $2.7 billion for the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing to try to get them to drop charges against Libya.

The 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie in Scotland killed 270 people. Libyan Abdel Basset al-Meghrahi, who always denied involvement in downing the jet, was convicted of the bombing. He was released from jail in 2009 amid huge controversy in Britain and died of cancer in May.

Most but not all of the compensation was paid out by Libya on condition that U.N. sanctions against it were cancelled and U.S. trade sanctions against it lifted.

The judge said the two men's action was a crime because "the compensation 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 judge adjourned the men's trial until October 15 after Mustafa Kishlaf, the defense lawyer, said he needed access to certain files and more time to study the case.

On Sunday, war-time interim Justice Minister Mohammed Al-Alagy told reporters that the current trials of Gaddafi-era officials were "invalid" because the prosecutor general's office was not following the necessary legal steps.

Under Libyan law, the Indictment Chamber reviews cases and then refers them to the appropriate court. But Alagy said prosecutors were bypassing this body and demanded they review their procedures and the legality of those held in custody.

Buzeid Dorda, a former intelligence chief and the first former senior official from the Gaddafi era to be put on trial in Libya, said in July he had been denied the right to meet privately with a lawyer and had been subjected to illegal interrogations during his 10 months in detention.

His trial, which began on June 5, has been adjourned several times since for procedural reasons.

[A report on the Libyan Mathaba website contains the following:]

The Tripoli Appeals Court today Monday postponed the trial of senior officials of the derailed Jamahiriya to consider the issue of the defendants Mohammed Abu El-Gassem Yusuf al-Zwai, Secretary of the General People's Congress of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and Abdulati Ibrahim Muhammad al-Obeidi, Secretary of External Communications at the Congress until the 15th October at the request of their lawyers.

This was followed by the trial judge citing charges against the two accused, by the public prosecutor for first in 2004 as public officials for harming public money by granting compensation to the families of the victims of the Pan Am flight 103 "Lockerbie" case, of over two thousand seven hundred million dollars (2.7 billion),  exceeded the ceiling granted to them in a weak and fake case, since Libya was not responsible.

The second charge concerned treason of the suspects in taking part in negotiations with the lawyers of the families of the victims and agreeing to pay the compensation in exchange for the lifting of the unjust sanctions imposed upon Libya, instead of demanding compensation for those sanctions, which is still outstanding, and to remove Libya from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, while knowing that lawyers are not authorised to negotiate the conditions mentioned above by the US administration, which resulted in harm to the public money as applicable in the articles 2/9 of Law No. 2 of 1979 on economic crimes and articles 183 and 76 of the Penal Code.

Both the accused during the hearing rejected charges brought against them by the trial judge, and asked their defense counsel for for the copies of some papers and documents of the court with a request for the release of those documents, which was met by an objection by the prosecution. The court decided in its second public meeting today to defer consideration of the charges at the request of the defendants to give them more time so as to enable the defense lawers to interview their clients in accordance with legal procedures applicable and to see all documents permitted.

[Further information regarding the Lockerbie role of Obeidi can be found on this blog here; of Zwai here; and of Dorda here.]

Libyan acceptance of neutral venue trial reaffirmed

[What follows is an item headed Breaking of deadlock in Libya? posted on Safia Aoude’s The Pan Am 103 Crash Website and based largely on a report published by the Libyan Jana news agency on this date in 1998:]

Jim Swire held talks in Libya on Saturday with the justice minister about the trial for two suspects in the attack, Libya's official news agency reported on the 19th April. [Dr] Swire, and victims' legal adviser Robert Black met Justice Minister Mohammed Belgasim al-Zuwiy [more often anglicised as Zwai] after arriving in Tripoli.

They discussed suggestions by Swire and Black “concerning reaching ... a fair and just trial of the two suspects in a neutral country,” Libya's official news agency, JANA, reported. Swire and Black drove 215 miles from Tunisia to the Libyan capital Saturday, Swire's spokesman, David Ben-Ariyeh [Ben-Aryeah], said in London. Swire told Ben-Ariyeh he was grateful for the “efficient and warm welcome” they received.

Black and Swire held talks in Tripoli this week with [the suspects’ lawyer Ibrahim] Legwell and Libyan foreign affairs and justice officials. They also met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a bid to gain support for a trial plan formulated by Black. The most important meeting was held with the Libyan lawyer for Fhima and Megrahi in Tripoli, Dr Ibrahim Legwell.

Ibrahim Legwell said he told Scottish lawyer Robert Black and Jim Swire, that his two Libyan clients were ready to stand trial under Scottish law in a neutral country.

“We agreed on several basic points and details,” Legwell told Reuters in a telephone interview from the Libyan capital Tripoli. “I confirmed to them, as I have done previously, that my clients would stand for trial before such a court, which will be set not in Scotland nor the United States, but in a neutral country,” he added. “We also agreed that it would be established with an international panel of judges to be agreed upon and presided over by a senior Scottish judge. The court would operate under the criminal law and procedures of Scotland,” he added as well.

“We also are very concerned about how to ensure the safety, the security and the rights for our clients pending, during and after the trial,” he said.

Legwell said Libya's Justice Minister Mohamed Belgacem Zwai, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, and Libya's representative at the UN, Abouzid Omar Dourda [Dorda], attended part of his meetings with Black and Swire when these issues were discussed.

Zwai said he expected a settlement of the dispute over where to hold the trial. “We expect we will reach a solution that satisfies all parties before the World Court issues its decision,” he told reporters in Cairo late Monday. Black and Swire also met Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister Omar Mustafa al-Montasser in Libya and then Gaddafi Monday at the end of their visit. The Libyan revolutionary leader had in the past said he would support whatever the suspects' lawyers accepted.

Black and Swire left Tripoli Monday for Cairo, where they were to submit their proposal and results of their talks in Tripoli to Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) chief, Salim Ahmed Salim, Legwell said. Zwai met Abdel-Meguid Tuesday, officials in Cairo said. Black and Swire also undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the British government to join Libya in accepting the proposal, he added.

Legwell said the plan was that if Black's proposal was accepted by Britain, regional groupings such as the Arab League, the OAU and the European Union would submit to the Security Council a text approving the plan ahead of suspending the sanctions.

Jim Swire arrived in Cairo on the eve of the 21st April, and he told Reuters by phone, that Libya had agreed to surrender the two suspects to the Netherlands for trial. “I think the importance probably of what we've done is they (the Libyans) have renewed that undertaking and they have reinforced it,” he said. “This (proposal) was given the blessing of the leader subsequently,” Swire said of his 40-minute meeting with Gaddafi.

“The problem of course is, will the west set up the court that is required? I don't know what else the Libyan government can do to prove that they mean it when they say they would come.”

Lockerbie compensation: Libyan officials acquitted

[This is the headline over a report just published on the BBC News website. In its original form (it has now been slightly expanded), it read as follows:]

Two senior Libyan officials have been acquitted of "squandering public funds" by agreeing to pay $2.7bn (£1.7bn) in compensation to victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Former Foreign Minister Abdelaaty al-Obeidi [a long-serving member of the Libyan Lockerbie committee] and former General People's Congress head Mohamed al-Zway [a long time ambassador in London] have been on trial since September 2012.

Col Muammar Gaddafi agreed to pay the compensation in 2003.

These are the first verdicts against his officials since he was ousted.

[I am delighted to hear of these acquittals. Between 1993 and 2010 I had numerous dealings with Messrs Obeidi and Zwai over the Lockerbie case.  I found both of them to be straightforward, honest and trustworthy.  They were two of the good guys of the Gaddafi regime, in my view.  The saga of their arrest and trial after the collapse of the old regime can be followed here.

I am saddened to discover the following addition to the BBC’s report made at 16.08:]

State prosecutor Sidiq al-Sour later told journalists that the pair would face separate charges over the "systematic repressive policies practised" by Col Gaddafi's government during the 2011 uprising which toppled him.

He said they would face charges such as forming armed criminal groups, inciting rape and illegally detaining individuals. 

[An Agence France Presse news agency report on the Star Africa website contains the following:]

A Libyan court acquitted two former aides of slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi on Monday of charges connected to the deadly 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

“On behalf of all people, the court decides to acquit Abdelati al-Obeidi and Mohamed Belgassem al-Zwai of all charges against them,” the judge said to shouts of “Long live justice!” from the defendants’ families. (...)

It was unclear if Obeidi, a former foreign minister, and Zwai, ex-parliament speaker, would be released following their acquittal or if there were other charges outstanding.

“We are satisfied that the verdict proves that Libyan justice is transparent and equal,” said Sami, a nephew of Obeidi, as he left the courtroom.

The two men were accused of mismanaging public funds in compensating families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing.

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. 

[Further clarification can be found in this report from the news agency Reuters and in this report on the Middle East Online website.

I can find no recent information on the criminal proceedings against Abuzed Omar Dorda, another Gaddafi-era official heavily involved in seeking a resolution of the Lockerbie affair.]

"A fair and just trial ... in a neutral country"

[What follows is excerpted from an article on The Pan Am 103 Crash Website, which is itself based partly on a report from this date in 1998 by the Libyan news agency JANA:]

Jim Swire held talks in Libya on Saturday with the justice minister about the trial for two suspects in the attack, Libya's official news agency reported on the 19th April. J[im] Swire, and victims' legal adviser Robert Black met Justice Minister Mohammed Belqasim al-Zuwiy [or Zwai] after arriving in Tripoli.

They discussed suggestions by Swire and Black “concerning reaching ... a fair and just trial of the two suspects in a neutral country,” Libya's official news agency, JANA, reported. Swire and Black drove 215 miles from Tunisia to the Libyan capital Saturday, Swire's spokesman, David Ben-Aryeah, said in London. Swire told Ben-Aryeah he was grateful for the “efficient and warm welcome” they received.

Black and Swire held talks in Tripoli this week with Legwell and Libyan foreign affairs and justice officials.

The most important meeting was held with the Libyan lawyer for Fhima and Megrahi in Tripoli, Dr Ibrahim Legwell. Ibrahim Legwell said he told Scottish lawyer Robert Black and Jim Swire, that his two Libyan clients were ready to stand trial under Scottish law in a neutral country.

“We agreed on several basic points and details,” Legwell told Reuters in a telephone interview from the Libyan capital Tripoli. “I confirmed to them, as I have done previously, that my clients would stand for trial before such a court, which will be set not in Scotland nor the United States, but in a neutral country,” he added. “We also agreed that it would be established with an international panel of judges to be agreed upon and presided over by a senior Scottish judge. The court would operate under the criminal law and procedures of Scotland,” he added as well.

“We also are very concerned about how to ensure the safety, the security and the rights for our clients pending, during and after the trial,” he said. Legwell said Libya's Justice Minister Mohamed Belqasem Zwai, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, and Libya's representative at the UN, Abouzid Omar Dorda, attended part of his meetings with Black and Swire when these issues were discussed.

Zwai said he expected a settlement of the dispute over where to hold the trial. ”We expect we will reach a solution that satisfies all parties before the World Court issues its decision,” he told reporters in Cairo late Monday.

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.

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.]

Lockerbie and the Tripoli verdicts

[What follows is excerpted from a report published in today’s edition of The Herald:]

The Tripoli court also sentenced to death seven others, including former Libyan spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

The Crown Office had previously commented on Senussi's potential value to the new inquiry when he was extradited from Mauritania, on the west coast of Africa, to Libya in September 2012.

Mr Mulholland and the FBI have previously stated their continuing belief Libya was behind the massacre and al-Megrahi carried out the operation.

But Professor Robert Black QC, one of the architects of the Camp Zeist trial which convicted al-Megrahi, has said that while the execution of Senussi would not have major implications for the Lockerbie case, Omar-Dorda's death may.

He said: "If Lockerbie was a Libyan operation, which I've yet to be convinced it was, I doubt if Senussi was in the loop. He was mainly concerned with internal security, ie keeping Gaddafi in power, rather than foreign operations.

"But the events in Tripoli do impact on Lockerbie in other ways. One of those sentenced to death is Abuzed Omar-Dorda, who was instrumental in brokering the arrangement that led the UK and USA eventually to agree to a non-jury trial in the Netherlands. A genuinely good guy."

Professor Black said another two Libyans with Lockerbie connections had been acquitted: Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, former Foreign Minister who chaired the Libyan government committee that dealt with securing a Lockerbie trial and, later, with the ramifications of the guilty verdict against Megrahi, and Mohammed Zwai who was, for most of the relevant period during which the [fallout from the] Lockerbie trial was being considered, Libyan ambassador in London.

Dr Jim Swire, the public face of the British families of the Lockerbie victims and sceptic over the role of al-Megrahi and Libya, said he believed the executions were "irrelevant" to resolve any outstanding questions over the tragedy.

But he also described the Tripoli decisions as a "put down for the concept of international justice".

He added: "I had hoped vainly these guys would be handed over to international criminal courts, given a fair trial and no death sentence imposed. They have been tried in a court which wouldn't be recognised outside Libya.

"I'm particularly sad about Dorda, who I knew well and met many times."

Libya confirms support for proposed neutral venue trial

[On this date in 1998 Dr Jim Swire and I were in Libya. During our discussions in Cairo on 16 April 1998 at the headquarters of the Arab League, it was suggested that it would be useful for us to make a visit to Tripoli. This we did. What follows is from a press release issued following that visit:]

A meeting to discuss issues arising out of the Lockerbie bombing was held in the premises of the Libyan Foreign Office in Tripoli on the evening of Saturday 18 April 1998. Present were Mr Abdul Ati Obeidi, Under-Secretary of the Libyan Foreign Office; Mr Mohammed Belqassem Zuwiy [or Zwai], Secretary of Justice of Libya; Mr Abuzaid Omar Dorda, Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations; Dr Ibrahim Legwell, head of the defence team representing the two Libyan citizens suspected of the bombing; Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the British relatives group UK Families-Flight 103; and Professor Robert Black QC, Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and currently a visiting professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

At the meeting, discussion focused upon the plan which had been formulated in January 1994 by Professor Black for the establishment of a court to try the suspects which would: operate under the criminal law and procedure of Scotland; have in place of a jury an international panel of judges presided over by a senior Scottish judge; and, sit not in Scotland but in a neutral country such as The Netherlands.

Among the issues discussed were possible methods of appointment of the international panel of judges, and possible arrangements for the transfer of the suspects from Libya for trial and for ensuring their safety and security pending and during the trial.

Dr Legwell confirmed, as he had previously done in January 1994, that his clients agreed to stand trial before such a court if it were established. The representatives of the Libyan Government stated, as they had done in 1994 and on numerous occasions since then, that they would welcome the setting up of such a court and that if it were instituted they would permit their two citizens to stand trial before it and would co-operate in facilitating arrangements for that purpose.

Dr Swire and Prof Black undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the Government of the United Kingdom to join Libya in accepting this proposal.