A Libyan lawyers' union has created a fund to help pay for the defense of two Libyans charged in the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. Mohammed al-Ellagi, head of the Libyan Lawyers' Union, was quoted as saying that a number of Arab lawyers have volunteered their expertise or pledged money to help defend the suspects, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lameen Khalifa Fhimah. Al-Ellagi did not say how much money the union hoped to collect. The union is licensed by the Libyan government. Libya has accepted in principle a joint US-British offer to try the Libyans in the Netherlands under Scottish law and with Scottish judges. [Spokane.net]
Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi said the United States and Britain must drop their conditions if they want a trial of two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing take place in the Netherlands, the official Libyan news agency JANA reported Monday. "We challenge America and Britain not to set conditions which are bound to be firmly rejected, for holding that (Lockerbie) trial and if they wanted it be held and solve this issue,'' the agency, monitored in Tunis, quoted al-Qadhafi as saying. Al-Qadhafi, who was talking at a banquet in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte, some 280 miles east of Tripoli, in honor of visiting Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, did not say to which US and British conditions he was referring to. [Reuters]
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