[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The Herald by David Pratt, foreign editor of the Sunday Herald. It reads in part:]
Over the years, our dealings with Libya have never been known for their transparency.
At Colonel Gaddafi’s big tent meetings all kinds of deals in the desert were done. (...)
Two questions immediately spring to mind about which Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague need to come clean. The first is what is the nature of our relationship with the Libyan rebels? Just who, if anyone, are we cosying up to in Benghazi, and to what ends militarily and politically?
The second question to concerns the truth about Libya and the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Part emissary, part defector [RB: see yesterday's blog post], the arrival in Britain over the last few days of Libyan Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa, like some latter-day Rudolph Hess, is the perfect opportunity to glean information from the inside track of Gaddafi’s dictatorship. Like Hess in May 1941, Koussa in March 2011 came to the UK of his own volition. Unlike Hess, he didn’t crash land in an Eaglesham field, but touched down in a British military transport plane at Farnborough airport in an operation conducted by British MI6 intelligence officials.
At the risk of drawing too many parallels with his historical Nazi predecessor, it’s still fair to say that Koussa, like Hess, knows where the skeletons are buried. Tall, silver-haired and imposing, Koussa has the physical presence and demeanour of a great white shark. Koussa, too, has a reputation for calculated ruthlessness. Let’s not forget that this is the man who advocated killing Libyan dissidents on British soil and expressed his admiration for the IRA. In the 1980s when Lockerbie horrified us all, Koussa was a leading member of the Libyan Bureau for External Security (the Mathaba). Later in 1995 a British intelligence dossier described him as the chief of the “principal intelligence institution in Libya, which has been responsible for supporting terrorist organisations and for perpetrating state-sponsored acts of terrorism”.
Few are in any doubt that Koussa knows as much as there is to know about Libya’s regime, its links to terrorists worldwide and the Lockerbie bombing. Political shark as he is, clearly the Tripoli pond was getting a tad uncomfortable – hence his move to British shores. Yesterday, William Hague was at pains to point out that there will be no immunity from justice for Koussa, should he be found – as many claim – to have helped plan the Lockerbie atrocity.
Call me cynical, but it wouldn’t be the first time that a deal of dubious sorts has been done between the British Government and officials from the Libyan regime. By the very nature of his work Koussa for years has been in close contact with British intelligence, and in the seclusion of some safehouse during his debriefing, who can say what kind of you-scratch-my-back-deal might be struck, allowing him to slip the net of prosecution, despite what Mr Hague says?
What if, for example, Koussa simply offered up some tasty morsel of intelligence that would help put the final nail in Gaddafi’s coffin in exchange for some quiet, discreet retirement opportunity in a post-regime Libya. (...)
The only problem in the Libyan context is that any new government in Tripoli comprising leaders from the country’s rebel movement might have something to say about Koussa’s continued presence in the country. If there was one thing that struck me while in the uprising’s stronghold of Benghazi recently, it was the rebels’ complete determination to make sure that should their revolution be victorious, they would hold Gaddafi’s henchmen fully to account. One can only hope that the British Government remains as true to its word in Koussa’s case. (...)
Yesterday, Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the Lockerbie atrocity, described Moussa Koussa’s recent defection as a “great day” for families of the bombing’s victims. Dr Swire is right when he says: “This is a guy who knows everything”. And for that very reason it’s now up to the British Government to make sure a crucial opportunity is not squandered, and that if Mr Moussa Koussa really wants the benefit of sanctuary in the UK then he must once and for all put the record straight on any role Libya may have had in Lockerbie.
For too long now British policy regarding Libya has been shrouded in half-truths and riddled with hypocrisy. Now is the moment when that must change.If deals are being done over Libya, just for once I’d like to know what they consist of, in whose name they are being pursued, and to what ends.
Friday, 1 April 2011
Relatives of Lockerbie victims split over defector
[This is the headline over a report by Carolyn Churchill in today's edition of The Herald, whose coverage of the Mouusa Koussa story seems to me to be the best to be found in the Scottish dailies. It reads as follows:]
Former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa’s defection has provoked a further split in opinion among relatives of the 270 people killed in the Lockerbie bombing.
Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died when Pan Am flight 103 blew up in December 1988, said it should be seen as a moment for rejoicing as it offered a chance to shed light on the truth behind the atrocity.
But on the other side of the Atlantic, family members in America said they were horrified that Koussa had not been charged with mass murder as soon as he stepped on to British soil.
Despite assurances from Prime Minister David Cameron that the Libyan is not being granted immunity from prosecution, several relatives in the US expressed doubts that this would be guaranteed in the long-term.
Others voiced concern that there was no defection and he may, in fact, have travelled to England under a diplomatic mission.
Their concerns were fuelled by Professor Robert Black, QC, one of the architects of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist, who said there was a “strong indication” that Koussa’s arrival was a diplomatic manoeuvre.
Speaking from her home on the east coast of America, Stephanie Bernstein, whose husband Michael died in the atrocity, told The Herald: “I’m very nervous about what this deal contains – there clearly is a deal or he would not have come.
“This man was the main architect for the Lockerbie bombing. He has a tremendous amount of blood on his hands and it is absolutely critical that Scottish and US law enforcement are able to question him.”
Rosemary Wolfe, whose step-daughter Miriam was also on the flight, said she did not believe Mr Cameron’s statement that Koussa was not being given immunity. She said: “That doesn’t mean that he won’t be [given immunity].
“I’m absolutely nauseated and disgusted. He should have been put in handcuffs as soon as he got off the plane.
“I am sure he wouldn’t have arrived on British soil without some sort of pre-arrangement or discussion. That he should be exchanging his own freedom for any information that he could provide is absolutely horrendous.”
Some of the UK relatives have expressed doubts about the conviction of the Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who was found guilty of the murder of 270 people, and they said Koussa’s defection could lead to the truth being uncovered.
Dr Swire, who has met Koussa previously, said the Libyan was “extremely frightening, more frightening than Gaddafi himself”.
He said: “He was clearly running things. If Libya was involved in Lockerbie, he can tell us how they carried out the atrocity and why.”
Reverend John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter died in the bombing, said he was “95% convinced” that Libya was not responsible for the atrocity.
But he said that since Megrahi had been found guilty in a court of law, Koussa should also have been taken into custody when he arrived on British soil.
He said: “[Megrahi] is the only one found guilty by a Scottish court, therefore Megrahi is guilty of mass murder. If he is guilty this man was his boss so if Megrahi is guilty this man is surely guilty.
“He ought to be in custody being closely questioned or at some point or other brought to court or trial. That would be the just thing if Megrahi is guilty. Even if Libya were not guilty I would think if anybody knows, Mr Koussa will know who did it.”
Professor Black, meanwhile, said: “If he were defecting he would not defect to a country that was going to put him on trial for murder. He would seek immunity from prosecution. The fact that he hasn’t would lead me to believe that he has not defected.
“If he has defected then he could be a source of informa-tion about any involvement Libya may have had in Lockerbie. My position is that the Libyan who was convicted ought not to have been because the evidence simply did not warrant it.
“It is perfectly possible that Libya was involved in someway, whether supplying personnel or materials or logistic support.
“If anybody would know about that it would be Mr Koussa, because if he was involved his fingerprints would be all over it.
“Given his position and the positions he held at the time there is no way that if Libya was involved it could have happened without his participation.”
[Michael Settle, the paper's UK political editor, contributes a report headlined Tell us the secrets of Lockerbie. It reads in part:]
Scottish detectives and prosecutors are to interview Libyan defector Moussa Koussa about his involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. (...)
“This could be all the evidence that we wanted given to us on a silver platter,” declared Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103 group in the US.
“Koussa was at the centre of Gaddafi’s inner circle. This is a guy who knows everything,” said Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity. He added: “This is a fantastic day for those who seek the truth about Lockerbie. He could tell us everything the Gaddafi regime knows.”
Last night, there were reports that other senior figures were preparing to follow Koussa’s lead.
Al Jazeera broadcast that “a number of figures” close to Gaddafi were leaving the country for neighbouring Tunisia.
Earlier reports claimed the Foreign Office was in secret talks with six more of the dictator’s aides about defecting, but this was played down by Downing Street. (...)
A Whitehall source explained British officials “need to tread carefully” and take their time talking to [Koussa]. “It’s a delicate situation and we need to take a measured approach. It’s early days,” he told The Herald.
However, apart from any historical evidence the defector might have on Lockerbie, MI6 will be hoping for as much intelligence as possible on Gaddafi’s current strategy.
It is believed he may also know the identity of the killer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.
And as head of the Libyan intelligence agency from 1994 to 2009, he is likely to be able to provide details of Libya’s support for the IRA.
It is thought the debriefing could take some time, so any questioning by the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Police might not take place for several days, if not weeks [RB: if at all]. (...)
Gaddafi’s spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Koussa had been given permission to go to Tunisia for health treatment. He added: “His heart and body cannot take the pressures. If someone wants to step down, that’s his decision,” he added.
Tory backencher Robert Halfon compared the defection to that of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s disillusioned lieutenant, who crash-landed near Eaglesham in East Renfrewshire in 1941.
He said Koussa “should be put in front of a British or international court for war crimes, if it is true that he was behind the Lockerbie bombing”.
Last night, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said America should not pursue nation building or seek to direct the future of a post-Gaddafi Libya. It follows claims President Barack Obama had signed secret orders allowing intelligence operatives to provide support for rebels.
“I think that the last thing this country needs is another enterprise in nation building,” Gates told a Senate hearing.
[A further report by Carolyn Churchill in The Herald reads as follows:]
One of five Libyan diplomats expelled from the UK is understood to be the country’s former consul-general in Scotland.
Abdulrahman Swessi was based in Glasgow while the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was behind bars in Barlinnie and then Greenock prisons.
Mr Swessi is thought to have been working in the Libyan embassy in London since Megrahi returned to Tripoli and is believed to be among five people given until April 6 to leave the country.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office would not confirm the identity of the diplomats yesterday, but reiterated William Hague’s comments to Parliament on Wednesday when he said they were asked to leave because of concerns they could pose a risk to national security.
Professor Robert Black QC, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, questioned the reasoning behind Mr Swessi’s expulsion from the UK and said it was more likely to be because his name is forever linked with the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
He said: “He was never a high policymaker in any way. He was appointed simply to safeguard Megrahi’s interests while Megrahi’s family had their house in Glasgow. He was a social worker, if anything.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “They are five members of the Libyan embassy, including the military attache, who we believe are the strongest Gaddafi supporters. We believe they have been putting pressure on opposition and student groups in the UK.”
[Reports in today's edition of The Times (accessible only by subscribers) contain the following:]
Scottish police and prosecutors are seeking to interview Moussa Koussa, the defecting Libyan Foreign Minister, raising the prospect of resolving once and for all the truth about the Lockerbie bombing.
Officials at the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecuting authority, last night contacted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office saying they wished to speak to Mr Koussa in connection with the attack on PanAm Flight 103 in December 1988, which led to the death of 270 people.
Meanwhile Patrick Shearer, the chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police, the force which is still investigating the atrocity, said it would be unusual if they did not seek the opportunity to speak to “a senior member of the Government in Libya”.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, in response to the Scottish authorities, gave a strong indication that Scottish detectives would be allowed to question him. He told a news conference: “The investigation is still open. They should follow their investigation wherever it leads and we will respond to any request they make.”
However, in an unusual intervention, Whitehall officials insisted that Mr Koussa was not the “prime suspect” over Lockerbie. The Government also failed to rule out the possibility that he might leave the country before lengthy investigations by the International Criminal Court are complete. [RB: surprise, surprise!] (...)
Moussa Koussa visited Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi in Greenock Prison where he was serving his life sentence, it emerged yesterday.
Official documents reveal that, at a meeting with Scottish officials in Glasgow in January 2009, he warned that al-Megrahi had only a few months to live, and said that if he were to die in a Scottish prison it “would not be viewed well by the Muslims or the Arabs”. The minute indicates that Mr Koussa also made it clear that it would “not be good for relations” between the UK and Libya. That such a senior figure in the Libyan administration should have had access to al-Megrahi, and have exerted pressure on Scottish officials, will further convince those who opposed the Libyan’s return, that there was more to his release than compassion.
Mr Koussa, it has emerged, met Scottish Government officials twice — in late 2008 and again in early 2009 — after al-Megrahi had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Curiously, in the minutes of the first meeting on October 27, 2008, which included Foreign Office and Scottish Government officials as well as three Libyans, Mr Koussa is referred to as an “interpreter”. At a meeting in Glasgow on January 22, 2009, attended by six Libyans and four Scottish government officials, Mr Koussa is referred to as “Minister for Security” and the minutes shows that he intervened to draw attending to al-Megrahi’s illness. The minute goes on: “He (Koussa) spoke of al-Megrahi’s medical condition and that he feels that he only has a few months left.”
It was made clear by the Scottish Government last night that although officials had met him, Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister who in August 2009 released al-Megrahi, had had no direct contact with Mr Koussa.
Scottish campaigners who met Mr Koussa during their decades spent fighting for the truth about the Lockerbie bombing have told The Times that they found him more frightening than Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. And they said that they gleaned from encounters with the former Libyan foreign minister that, if the country were responsible for the explosion of Pan Am flight 103, then “his fingerprints will be all over it”.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, was one of the 270 people killed, said he met Mr Koussa in 1991. “I realised straight away that he was a central figure who had everything at his fingertips and was a chief executive in deciding what would happen in the country.”
Two years later, Robert Black, the Scottish QC who was the architect of the trial at Camp Zeist, went to meet Mr Koussa — the first of about nine encounters over 16 years. “The Libyans were very frightened of him. That was transparently obvious. Moussa would come into the hotel where I was staying and I could see everyone else, all the Libyans ... it was as if a shiver was going down their spines.”
“Certainly if Libya was involved in Lockerbie in any capacity then I have no doubt at all that Moussa Koussa knows about it,” said the lawyer. “If Libya was involved then it will have Moussa Koussa’s fingerprints all over it.”
[The Daily Telegraph runs a breathless story headlined Libya: dilemma over defector's 'electrifying' Lockerbie information. The text in no way supports the headline.
Dr Jim Swire and Steven Raeburn, editor of The Firm, appeared last night on the BBC's Newsnight Scotland. The programme can be viewed here.]
Former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa’s defection has provoked a further split in opinion among relatives of the 270 people killed in the Lockerbie bombing.
Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died when Pan Am flight 103 blew up in December 1988, said it should be seen as a moment for rejoicing as it offered a chance to shed light on the truth behind the atrocity.
But on the other side of the Atlantic, family members in America said they were horrified that Koussa had not been charged with mass murder as soon as he stepped on to British soil.
Despite assurances from Prime Minister David Cameron that the Libyan is not being granted immunity from prosecution, several relatives in the US expressed doubts that this would be guaranteed in the long-term.
Others voiced concern that there was no defection and he may, in fact, have travelled to England under a diplomatic mission.
Their concerns were fuelled by Professor Robert Black, QC, one of the architects of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist, who said there was a “strong indication” that Koussa’s arrival was a diplomatic manoeuvre.
Speaking from her home on the east coast of America, Stephanie Bernstein, whose husband Michael died in the atrocity, told The Herald: “I’m very nervous about what this deal contains – there clearly is a deal or he would not have come.
“This man was the main architect for the Lockerbie bombing. He has a tremendous amount of blood on his hands and it is absolutely critical that Scottish and US law enforcement are able to question him.”
Rosemary Wolfe, whose step-daughter Miriam was also on the flight, said she did not believe Mr Cameron’s statement that Koussa was not being given immunity. She said: “That doesn’t mean that he won’t be [given immunity].
“I’m absolutely nauseated and disgusted. He should have been put in handcuffs as soon as he got off the plane.
“I am sure he wouldn’t have arrived on British soil without some sort of pre-arrangement or discussion. That he should be exchanging his own freedom for any information that he could provide is absolutely horrendous.”
Some of the UK relatives have expressed doubts about the conviction of the Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who was found guilty of the murder of 270 people, and they said Koussa’s defection could lead to the truth being uncovered.
Dr Swire, who has met Koussa previously, said the Libyan was “extremely frightening, more frightening than Gaddafi himself”.
He said: “He was clearly running things. If Libya was involved in Lockerbie, he can tell us how they carried out the atrocity and why.”
Reverend John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter died in the bombing, said he was “95% convinced” that Libya was not responsible for the atrocity.
But he said that since Megrahi had been found guilty in a court of law, Koussa should also have been taken into custody when he arrived on British soil.
He said: “[Megrahi] is the only one found guilty by a Scottish court, therefore Megrahi is guilty of mass murder. If he is guilty this man was his boss so if Megrahi is guilty this man is surely guilty.
“He ought to be in custody being closely questioned or at some point or other brought to court or trial. That would be the just thing if Megrahi is guilty. Even if Libya were not guilty I would think if anybody knows, Mr Koussa will know who did it.”
Professor Black, meanwhile, said: “If he were defecting he would not defect to a country that was going to put him on trial for murder. He would seek immunity from prosecution. The fact that he hasn’t would lead me to believe that he has not defected.
“If he has defected then he could be a source of informa-tion about any involvement Libya may have had in Lockerbie. My position is that the Libyan who was convicted ought not to have been because the evidence simply did not warrant it.
“It is perfectly possible that Libya was involved in someway, whether supplying personnel or materials or logistic support.
“If anybody would know about that it would be Mr Koussa, because if he was involved his fingerprints would be all over it.
“Given his position and the positions he held at the time there is no way that if Libya was involved it could have happened without his participation.”
[Michael Settle, the paper's UK political editor, contributes a report headlined Tell us the secrets of Lockerbie. It reads in part:]
Scottish detectives and prosecutors are to interview Libyan defector Moussa Koussa about his involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. (...)
“This could be all the evidence that we wanted given to us on a silver platter,” declared Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103 group in the US.
“Koussa was at the centre of Gaddafi’s inner circle. This is a guy who knows everything,” said Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity. He added: “This is a fantastic day for those who seek the truth about Lockerbie. He could tell us everything the Gaddafi regime knows.”
Last night, there were reports that other senior figures were preparing to follow Koussa’s lead.
Al Jazeera broadcast that “a number of figures” close to Gaddafi were leaving the country for neighbouring Tunisia.
Earlier reports claimed the Foreign Office was in secret talks with six more of the dictator’s aides about defecting, but this was played down by Downing Street. (...)
A Whitehall source explained British officials “need to tread carefully” and take their time talking to [Koussa]. “It’s a delicate situation and we need to take a measured approach. It’s early days,” he told The Herald.
However, apart from any historical evidence the defector might have on Lockerbie, MI6 will be hoping for as much intelligence as possible on Gaddafi’s current strategy.
It is believed he may also know the identity of the killer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.
And as head of the Libyan intelligence agency from 1994 to 2009, he is likely to be able to provide details of Libya’s support for the IRA.
It is thought the debriefing could take some time, so any questioning by the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway Police might not take place for several days, if not weeks [RB: if at all]. (...)
Gaddafi’s spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Koussa had been given permission to go to Tunisia for health treatment. He added: “His heart and body cannot take the pressures. If someone wants to step down, that’s his decision,” he added.
Tory backencher Robert Halfon compared the defection to that of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s disillusioned lieutenant, who crash-landed near Eaglesham in East Renfrewshire in 1941.
He said Koussa “should be put in front of a British or international court for war crimes, if it is true that he was behind the Lockerbie bombing”.
Last night, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said America should not pursue nation building or seek to direct the future of a post-Gaddafi Libya. It follows claims President Barack Obama had signed secret orders allowing intelligence operatives to provide support for rebels.
“I think that the last thing this country needs is another enterprise in nation building,” Gates told a Senate hearing.
[A further report by Carolyn Churchill in The Herald reads as follows:]
One of five Libyan diplomats expelled from the UK is understood to be the country’s former consul-general in Scotland.
Abdulrahman Swessi was based in Glasgow while the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was behind bars in Barlinnie and then Greenock prisons.
Mr Swessi is thought to have been working in the Libyan embassy in London since Megrahi returned to Tripoli and is believed to be among five people given until April 6 to leave the country.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office would not confirm the identity of the diplomats yesterday, but reiterated William Hague’s comments to Parliament on Wednesday when he said they were asked to leave because of concerns they could pose a risk to national security.
Professor Robert Black QC, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, questioned the reasoning behind Mr Swessi’s expulsion from the UK and said it was more likely to be because his name is forever linked with the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
He said: “He was never a high policymaker in any way. He was appointed simply to safeguard Megrahi’s interests while Megrahi’s family had their house in Glasgow. He was a social worker, if anything.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “They are five members of the Libyan embassy, including the military attache, who we believe are the strongest Gaddafi supporters. We believe they have been putting pressure on opposition and student groups in the UK.”
[Reports in today's edition of The Times (accessible only by subscribers) contain the following:]
Scottish police and prosecutors are seeking to interview Moussa Koussa, the defecting Libyan Foreign Minister, raising the prospect of resolving once and for all the truth about the Lockerbie bombing.
Officials at the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecuting authority, last night contacted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office saying they wished to speak to Mr Koussa in connection with the attack on PanAm Flight 103 in December 1988, which led to the death of 270 people.
Meanwhile Patrick Shearer, the chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police, the force which is still investigating the atrocity, said it would be unusual if they did not seek the opportunity to speak to “a senior member of the Government in Libya”.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, in response to the Scottish authorities, gave a strong indication that Scottish detectives would be allowed to question him. He told a news conference: “The investigation is still open. They should follow their investigation wherever it leads and we will respond to any request they make.”
However, in an unusual intervention, Whitehall officials insisted that Mr Koussa was not the “prime suspect” over Lockerbie. The Government also failed to rule out the possibility that he might leave the country before lengthy investigations by the International Criminal Court are complete. [RB: surprise, surprise!] (...)
Moussa Koussa visited Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi in Greenock Prison where he was serving his life sentence, it emerged yesterday.
Official documents reveal that, at a meeting with Scottish officials in Glasgow in January 2009, he warned that al-Megrahi had only a few months to live, and said that if he were to die in a Scottish prison it “would not be viewed well by the Muslims or the Arabs”. The minute indicates that Mr Koussa also made it clear that it would “not be good for relations” between the UK and Libya. That such a senior figure in the Libyan administration should have had access to al-Megrahi, and have exerted pressure on Scottish officials, will further convince those who opposed the Libyan’s return, that there was more to his release than compassion.
Mr Koussa, it has emerged, met Scottish Government officials twice — in late 2008 and again in early 2009 — after al-Megrahi had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Curiously, in the minutes of the first meeting on October 27, 2008, which included Foreign Office and Scottish Government officials as well as three Libyans, Mr Koussa is referred to as an “interpreter”. At a meeting in Glasgow on January 22, 2009, attended by six Libyans and four Scottish government officials, Mr Koussa is referred to as “Minister for Security” and the minutes shows that he intervened to draw attending to al-Megrahi’s illness. The minute goes on: “He (Koussa) spoke of al-Megrahi’s medical condition and that he feels that he only has a few months left.”
It was made clear by the Scottish Government last night that although officials had met him, Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister who in August 2009 released al-Megrahi, had had no direct contact with Mr Koussa.
Scottish campaigners who met Mr Koussa during their decades spent fighting for the truth about the Lockerbie bombing have told The Times that they found him more frightening than Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. And they said that they gleaned from encounters with the former Libyan foreign minister that, if the country were responsible for the explosion of Pan Am flight 103, then “his fingerprints will be all over it”.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, was one of the 270 people killed, said he met Mr Koussa in 1991. “I realised straight away that he was a central figure who had everything at his fingertips and was a chief executive in deciding what would happen in the country.”
Two years later, Robert Black, the Scottish QC who was the architect of the trial at Camp Zeist, went to meet Mr Koussa — the first of about nine encounters over 16 years. “The Libyans were very frightened of him. That was transparently obvious. Moussa would come into the hotel where I was staying and I could see everyone else, all the Libyans ... it was as if a shiver was going down their spines.”
“Certainly if Libya was involved in Lockerbie in any capacity then I have no doubt at all that Moussa Koussa knows about it,” said the lawyer. “If Libya was involved then it will have Moussa Koussa’s fingerprints all over it.”
[The Daily Telegraph runs a breathless story headlined Libya: dilemma over defector's 'electrifying' Lockerbie information. The text in no way supports the headline.
Dr Jim Swire and Steven Raeburn, editor of The Firm, appeared last night on the BBC's Newsnight Scotland. The programme can be viewed here.]
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Lockerbie bombing prosecutors target Libyan defector Moussa Koussa
[This is the headline over a report just published on the website of The Guardian. It reads in part:]
Scottish prosecutors have asked to interview Moussa Koussa about the Lockerbie bombing after the Libyan foreign minister and spy chief defected to Britain.
The request from the Crown Office in Scotland follows demands from Libya's rebel leadership for Koussa to be returned to Libya for trial for murder and crimes against humanity after Muammar Gaddafi is toppled from power.
William Hague, the British foreign secretary, has said the UK is not offering Koussa immunity from prosecution.
The Crown Office in Edinburgh has said it is formally asking for its prosecutors and detectives from Dumfries and Galloway police to question Koussa about the 1988 bombing. "We have notified the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the Scottish prosecuting and investigating authorities wish to interview Mr Koussa in connection with the Lockerbie bombing," it said.
"The investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and we will pursue all relevant lines of inquiry."
Dumfries and Galloway police, which investigated the Lockerbie case, has confirmed its detectives are keen to interview Koussa.
It remains unclear what role Koussa played when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 passengers, crew and townspeople. He later emerged as head of Libyan intelligence services. (...)
Senior figures in the Lockerbie case – including Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the attack, and Professor Robert Black, a lawyer and architect of the trial of two Libyans accused of the atrocity – have said they believe Koussa might have significant information about Libya's role.
Koussa was pivotal in the negotiations to hand over the two suspects – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah – for trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001. He oversaw Libya's negotiations to pay billion of pounds in reparations for the attack.
The Libyans' consistent denial of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing has been repeatedly rejected by the UK and US governments, and Scottish prosecutors.
Swire, from UK Families of Pan Am Flight 103, and Black, emeritus professor of Scots law at Edinburgh University, have said they believe Megrahi is innocent. He remains the only man convicted of the bombing.
As Libyan foreign minister, Koussa met Foreign Office and Scottish government officials at least twice in 2008 and 2009 to negotiate Megrahi's release from Greenock prison. Koussa visited Megrahi in jail. Megrahi's lawyer, Tony Scott [RB: now corrected to Tony Kelly], has declined to comment on the latest developments.
Swire said the weight of evidence pointed to Syria as the main culprit but "within the Libyan regime [Koussa] is in the best position of anyone other than Gaddafi himself to tell us what the regime knows or did. He would be a peerless source of information".
Detective Superintendent Mickey Dalgliesh, who is in charge of the Lockerbie case at Dumfries and Galloway police, said the Crown Office request to interview Koussa was "in line with our position that the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and we are determined to pursue all relevant lines of inquiry".
[A column by former UK ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles has just been published on the Comment is free website of The Guardian. It is headed "Moussa Koussa's defection should be exploited: Denying Moussa Koussa immunity from prosecution in Britain does nothing to encourage others to desert Gaddafi".
A further Guardian report headlined "Moussa Koussa's defection surprises Libya – and maybe Britain too" can be read here.
The report on this issue on the BBC News website quotes extensively from this blog.]
Scottish prosecutors have asked to interview Moussa Koussa about the Lockerbie bombing after the Libyan foreign minister and spy chief defected to Britain.
The request from the Crown Office in Scotland follows demands from Libya's rebel leadership for Koussa to be returned to Libya for trial for murder and crimes against humanity after Muammar Gaddafi is toppled from power.
William Hague, the British foreign secretary, has said the UK is not offering Koussa immunity from prosecution.
The Crown Office in Edinburgh has said it is formally asking for its prosecutors and detectives from Dumfries and Galloway police to question Koussa about the 1988 bombing. "We have notified the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the Scottish prosecuting and investigating authorities wish to interview Mr Koussa in connection with the Lockerbie bombing," it said.
"The investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and we will pursue all relevant lines of inquiry."
Dumfries and Galloway police, which investigated the Lockerbie case, has confirmed its detectives are keen to interview Koussa.
It remains unclear what role Koussa played when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 passengers, crew and townspeople. He later emerged as head of Libyan intelligence services. (...)
Senior figures in the Lockerbie case – including Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the attack, and Professor Robert Black, a lawyer and architect of the trial of two Libyans accused of the atrocity – have said they believe Koussa might have significant information about Libya's role.
Koussa was pivotal in the negotiations to hand over the two suspects – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah – for trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001. He oversaw Libya's negotiations to pay billion of pounds in reparations for the attack.
The Libyans' consistent denial of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing has been repeatedly rejected by the UK and US governments, and Scottish prosecutors.
Swire, from UK Families of Pan Am Flight 103, and Black, emeritus professor of Scots law at Edinburgh University, have said they believe Megrahi is innocent. He remains the only man convicted of the bombing.
As Libyan foreign minister, Koussa met Foreign Office and Scottish government officials at least twice in 2008 and 2009 to negotiate Megrahi's release from Greenock prison. Koussa visited Megrahi in jail. Megrahi's lawyer, Tony Scott [RB: now corrected to Tony Kelly], has declined to comment on the latest developments.
Swire said the weight of evidence pointed to Syria as the main culprit but "within the Libyan regime [Koussa] is in the best position of anyone other than Gaddafi himself to tell us what the regime knows or did. He would be a peerless source of information".
Detective Superintendent Mickey Dalgliesh, who is in charge of the Lockerbie case at Dumfries and Galloway police, said the Crown Office request to interview Koussa was "in line with our position that the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and we are determined to pursue all relevant lines of inquiry".
[A column by former UK ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles has just been published on the Comment is free website of The Guardian. It is headed "Moussa Koussa's defection should be exploited: Denying Moussa Koussa immunity from prosecution in Britain does nothing to encourage others to desert Gaddafi".
A further Guardian report headlined "Moussa Koussa's defection surprises Libya – and maybe Britain too" can be read here.
The report on this issue on the BBC News website quotes extensively from this blog.]
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.]
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.]
Moussa Koussa could know truth about Lockerbie bombing, say campaigners
[This is the headline over a report just published on the website of The Guardian by Severin Carrell, the paper's Scotland correspondent. It reads in part:]
Crucial questions about Libya's role in the Lockerbie bombing could finally be answered after the defection of the country's foreign minister, say campaigners.
Professor Robert Black and Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, was killed in the attack, said Moussa Koussa had been a pivotal figure in the Gaddafi regime and his defection was a "fantastic day" for the victims' families.
Scottish prosecution authorities plan to interview Koussa about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people on 21 December 1988. The Crown Office has been "liaising closely with other justice authorities", while Dumfries and Galloway police, which has kept open its files on the bombing, said it was waiting for direction from the Crown Office before asking permission to interview Koussa.
Swire and Black say they have spoken to Koussa, formerly Muammar Gaddafi's head of intelligence, on numerous occasions and describe him as "the scariest man" they have met. He even terrified other Libyan government officials, they said. They said Koussa had stuck rigidly to the official position that Libya was not responsible for the bombing.
Both men believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, jailed in 2001 for the bombing, is innocent, but questions remain on whether Libya was actually involved in the attack.
Swire claims the evidence points to Syria, not Libya. "Within the Libyan regime, [Koussa] is in the best position of anyone other than Gaddafi himself to tell us what the regime knows or did," he said. "He would be a peerless source of information."
Black, emeritus professor of Scots law at the University of Edinburgh, was the architect of the unique trial of Megrahi and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah, at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001.
Koussa signed the papers agreeing to the trial on behalf of the regime in July 1994, Black said, and was also involved in negotiating a multibillion-pound Lockerbie compensation deal with UK and US authorities.
The former spy chief played a key role in Libya's efforts to get Megrahi released from Greenock prison, meeting Scottish government and Foreign Office officials and visiting the bomber in jail.
"On a personal level, I always found [Koussa] extremely scary," Black said. "I never felt fear in the presence of any other Libyan official over the years, including Gaddafi, but Koussa was a frightening guy. It was the way everyone in Libya that I met was terrified of him."
Black said he had never formed a firm view on whether Libya was involved in the bombing, but had long suspected Megrahi had been wrongly convicted. "As far as the Libyans supplying components or logistical support for the bombing, I don't know," he added.
Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Tripoli, said he knew Koussa well when he was head of the Libyan "people's bureau" or UK embassy before he was expelled in 1980 for openly supporting Irish republicans and terrorism.
Miles – a former president of the Society for Libyan Studies – found him a "straightforward and reliable" diplomat to deal with, despite his fierce loyalty to Muammar Gaddafi and his reputation amongst his Libyan friends of being "a terror".
Miles, who was then head of the Foreign Office's north Africa department before becoming Libyan ambassador until diplomatic relations broke off in 1984, said: "I found him a perfectly reasonable person to deal with; he struck me first of all as being a committed revolutionary. His record shows he is or was a devout admirer of Gaddafi." (...)
Miles said it was difficult to assess how useful Koussa could be on the Lockerbie affair. "There are two parts to this question: the first question is that given the situation he's in, is his personality and professional training conducive to him spilling the beans? And I think yes, with some reservations. But the real question is: does he have those beans to spill?"
He added that immediately detaining and threatening to prosecute Koussa would be very damaging to the UK's main interest: destabilising and toppling Gaddafi. "I very much hope that the government puts the questions of possible court action and criminal proceedings as a second priority, behind using this incident to unsettle Gaddafi. If Moussa Koussa is in jail, that's hardly going to encourage more defectors."
Crucial questions about Libya's role in the Lockerbie bombing could finally be answered after the defection of the country's foreign minister, say campaigners.
Professor Robert Black and Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, was killed in the attack, said Moussa Koussa had been a pivotal figure in the Gaddafi regime and his defection was a "fantastic day" for the victims' families.
Scottish prosecution authorities plan to interview Koussa about the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people on 21 December 1988. The Crown Office has been "liaising closely with other justice authorities", while Dumfries and Galloway police, which has kept open its files on the bombing, said it was waiting for direction from the Crown Office before asking permission to interview Koussa.
Swire and Black say they have spoken to Koussa, formerly Muammar Gaddafi's head of intelligence, on numerous occasions and describe him as "the scariest man" they have met. He even terrified other Libyan government officials, they said. They said Koussa had stuck rigidly to the official position that Libya was not responsible for the bombing.
Both men believe Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, jailed in 2001 for the bombing, is innocent, but questions remain on whether Libya was actually involved in the attack.
Swire claims the evidence points to Syria, not Libya. "Within the Libyan regime, [Koussa] is in the best position of anyone other than Gaddafi himself to tell us what the regime knows or did," he said. "He would be a peerless source of information."
Black, emeritus professor of Scots law at the University of Edinburgh, was the architect of the unique trial of Megrahi and his co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah, at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001.
Koussa signed the papers agreeing to the trial on behalf of the regime in July 1994, Black said, and was also involved in negotiating a multibillion-pound Lockerbie compensation deal with UK and US authorities.
The former spy chief played a key role in Libya's efforts to get Megrahi released from Greenock prison, meeting Scottish government and Foreign Office officials and visiting the bomber in jail.
"On a personal level, I always found [Koussa] extremely scary," Black said. "I never felt fear in the presence of any other Libyan official over the years, including Gaddafi, but Koussa was a frightening guy. It was the way everyone in Libya that I met was terrified of him."
Black said he had never formed a firm view on whether Libya was involved in the bombing, but had long suspected Megrahi had been wrongly convicted. "As far as the Libyans supplying components or logistical support for the bombing, I don't know," he added.
Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Tripoli, said he knew Koussa well when he was head of the Libyan "people's bureau" or UK embassy before he was expelled in 1980 for openly supporting Irish republicans and terrorism.
Miles – a former president of the Society for Libyan Studies – found him a "straightforward and reliable" diplomat to deal with, despite his fierce loyalty to Muammar Gaddafi and his reputation amongst his Libyan friends of being "a terror".
Miles, who was then head of the Foreign Office's north Africa department before becoming Libyan ambassador until diplomatic relations broke off in 1984, said: "I found him a perfectly reasonable person to deal with; he struck me first of all as being a committed revolutionary. His record shows he is or was a devout admirer of Gaddafi." (...)
Miles said it was difficult to assess how useful Koussa could be on the Lockerbie affair. "There are two parts to this question: the first question is that given the situation he's in, is his personality and professional training conducive to him spilling the beans? And I think yes, with some reservations. But the real question is: does he have those beans to spill?"
He added that immediately detaining and threatening to prosecute Koussa would be very damaging to the UK's main interest: destabilising and toppling Gaddafi. "I very much hope that the government puts the questions of possible court action and criminal proceedings as a second priority, behind using this incident to unsettle Gaddafi. If Moussa Koussa is in jail, that's hardly going to encourage more defectors."
Former Libyan consul in Glasgow expelled
Among the five Libyan diplomats declared persona non grata by the UK Government yesterday and given until 6 April to leave the country with their dependants is Abdurrahman Swessi who was consul in Glasgow during the period of Abdelbaset Megrahi's imprisonment in Scotland. The other four are:
Fareg Alayat
Saad Mhemed
Husein Elghazali
Mahmoud Alsadawi.
Fareg Alayat
Saad Mhemed
Husein Elghazali
Mahmoud Alsadawi.
Defection or diplomatic mission?
Has Moussa Koussa really defected? There are some indications that this may be a diplomatic mission -- negotiating an exit strategy for the Gaddafi regime -- rather than a defection.
1. Moussa is not accompanied by his family, who are apparently still in Libya. If he had been planning defection he would have had no difficulty in getting them out of the country before he flew to London.
2. He was accompanied to Tunisia (but not beyond) for his flight from Djerba to Farnborough by Abdel Ati al-Obeidi who remains a trusted counsellor of Gaddafi (and a trusted intermediary in the eyes of the UK and the USA).
3. If Moussa had defected, he would surely have negotiated immunity from prosecution for any personal involvement in Lockerbie (if Libya was implicated in any capacity, Moussa would inevitably have been personally involved). According to Foreign Secretary William Hague, no such immunity has been granted. This suggests that his visit is already covered by diplomatic immunity.
1. Moussa is not accompanied by his family, who are apparently still in Libya. If he had been planning defection he would have had no difficulty in getting them out of the country before he flew to London.
2. He was accompanied to Tunisia (but not beyond) for his flight from Djerba to Farnborough by Abdel Ati al-Obeidi who remains a trusted counsellor of Gaddafi (and a trusted intermediary in the eyes of the UK and the USA).
3. If Moussa had defected, he would surely have negotiated immunity from prosecution for any personal involvement in Lockerbie (if Libya was implicated in any capacity, Moussa would inevitably have been personally involved). According to Foreign Secretary William Hague, no such immunity has been granted. This suggests that his visit is already covered by diplomatic immunity.
Koussa's Libya defection welcomed by Lockerbie relative
[This is the headline over a report just published on the BBC News website. It reads in part:]
The Libyan Foreign Minister's defection was a "great day" for families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing, according to one victim's father.
Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, said Moussa Koussa was at the heart of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's government and "could tell us everything". (...)
Mr Swire said the relatives of those who died "should be rejoicing".
Mr Koussa arrived in London on Wednesday saying he was no longer willing to represent the Libyan leader's regime internationally.
"Koussa was at the centre of Gaddafi's inner circle," Mr Swire said.
"This is a guy who knows everything.
"I think this is a fantastic day for those who seek the truth about Lockerbie."
Mr Swire, who met Mr Koussa during a visit to Libya in 1998, said he was "extremely frightening - more frightening than Gaddafi himself".
He said: "He was clearly running things.
"If Libya was involved in Lockerbie, he can tell us how they carried out the atrocity and why.
"I would be appalled if by now the Scottish police are not in England interviewing Mr Koussa - it is a great day for us."
The Libyan Foreign Minister's defection was a "great day" for families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing, according to one victim's father.
Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, said Moussa Koussa was at the heart of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's government and "could tell us everything". (...)
Mr Swire said the relatives of those who died "should be rejoicing".
Mr Koussa arrived in London on Wednesday saying he was no longer willing to represent the Libyan leader's regime internationally.
"Koussa was at the centre of Gaddafi's inner circle," Mr Swire said.
"This is a guy who knows everything.
"I think this is a fantastic day for those who seek the truth about Lockerbie."
Mr Swire, who met Mr Koussa during a visit to Libya in 1998, said he was "extremely frightening - more frightening than Gaddafi himself".
He said: "He was clearly running things.
"If Libya was involved in Lockerbie, he can tell us how they carried out the atrocity and why.
"I would be appalled if by now the Scottish police are not in England interviewing Mr Koussa - it is a great day for us."
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.]
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.]
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Scottish leaders' debate: First Minister Alex Salmond under fire on release of ... Megrahi
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the blindly Labour-supporting Daily Record on the first televised debate between the Scottish party leaders in the run-up to the Scottish Parliament election in May. It reads in part:]
Scots Labour leader Iain Gray won loud applause during last night's live TV election debate when he tore into the SNP goverment's fateful decision to free the Lockerbie bomber.
He told the audience in Glasgow: "I just think he got the decision wrong."
Gray hit back after Alex Salmond tried to defend the decision, in August 2009, to release terminal cancer sufferer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
It was arguably the biggest moment of Salmond's four years in power.
Last night, a question from an audience member during STV's live leaders' debate catapulted the controversy into the Holyrood election campaign.
And it revealed public anger that Megrahi, given three months to live, was released and continues to enjoy a life of luxury in his homeland nearly two years on. The audience member told Salmond: "Sometimes it's events, not policies, that define a leader and his party.
"Do you think the SNP will ever be forgiven for releasing Britain's biggest ever mass murderer?" Salmond said: "Yes, I do. "People don't necessarily vote for political parties because they agree or disagree with an issue, but parties are judged on whether they did what they believed was right."
Salmond claimed some victims' relatives supported the decision. He added: "Kenny MacAskill did it because he believed it to be right, not for oil or trade or politics."
But Gray instantly hit back - winning the biggest round of applause of the night. He said: "I just think he got the decision wrong and I've made that clear."
The Labour leader said Scottish justice had compassion built in - but it was not automatic.
He added: "One factor is the nature of the crime and it was the worst crime anyone has ever been convicted of in Scotland."
Scots Tory leader Annabel Goldie also slammed the decision to free Megrahi. She said: "It was a bad decision, badly made - and it reflected badly on Scotland."
The clash sparked an otherwise tame debate into life.
[According to a report by political correspondent Jamie Livingstone on the STV News website "The First Minister also successfully down-played his propensity to appear somewhat dismissive or arrogant and escaped largely unscathed over the release of the Lockerbie bomber."
Alan Cochrane's report in the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph opined: "The issue of Megrahi’s release was raised by a member of the studio audience but Mr Salmond was never seriously cross-questioned on the issue."
For some light relief, here is a link to the weekend edition of South Africa's best strip cartoon Madam & Eve.]
Scots Labour leader Iain Gray won loud applause during last night's live TV election debate when he tore into the SNP goverment's fateful decision to free the Lockerbie bomber.
He told the audience in Glasgow: "I just think he got the decision wrong."
Gray hit back after Alex Salmond tried to defend the decision, in August 2009, to release terminal cancer sufferer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
It was arguably the biggest moment of Salmond's four years in power.
Last night, a question from an audience member during STV's live leaders' debate catapulted the controversy into the Holyrood election campaign.
And it revealed public anger that Megrahi, given three months to live, was released and continues to enjoy a life of luxury in his homeland nearly two years on. The audience member told Salmond: "Sometimes it's events, not policies, that define a leader and his party.
"Do you think the SNP will ever be forgiven for releasing Britain's biggest ever mass murderer?" Salmond said: "Yes, I do. "People don't necessarily vote for political parties because they agree or disagree with an issue, but parties are judged on whether they did what they believed was right."
Salmond claimed some victims' relatives supported the decision. He added: "Kenny MacAskill did it because he believed it to be right, not for oil or trade or politics."
But Gray instantly hit back - winning the biggest round of applause of the night. He said: "I just think he got the decision wrong and I've made that clear."
The Labour leader said Scottish justice had compassion built in - but it was not automatic.
He added: "One factor is the nature of the crime and it was the worst crime anyone has ever been convicted of in Scotland."
Scots Tory leader Annabel Goldie also slammed the decision to free Megrahi. She said: "It was a bad decision, badly made - and it reflected badly on Scotland."
The clash sparked an otherwise tame debate into life.
[According to a report by political correspondent Jamie Livingstone on the STV News website "The First Minister also successfully down-played his propensity to appear somewhat dismissive or arrogant and escaped largely unscathed over the release of the Lockerbie bomber."
Alan Cochrane's report in the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph opined: "The issue of Megrahi’s release was raised by a member of the studio audience but Mr Salmond was never seriously cross-questioned on the issue."
For some light relief, here is a link to the weekend edition of South Africa's best strip cartoon Madam & Eve.]
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
What's Libya got to do with it...?
[This is the headline over a long article by Justice for Megrahi secretary Robert Forrester published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads in part:]
Despite the distress caused to anyone directly connected to the Pan Am 103 incident, it almost seems wrong to draw a spotlight on to the Lockerbie/Zeist case at a time when Libya is being torn apart by civil war. Nevertheless, David Cameron has chosen to do just that recently in seeking to justify his belligerence by saying of Muammar al-Gaddafi: "The people of Lockerbie know what this man is capable of." (David Cameron - 21/3/2011). Justice Secretary Ken Clark is also now playing the Lockerbie card by saying that we have to bring Gaddafi down to prevent him from seeking "another Lockerbie" in revenge for the UK’s support of the rebels.
It is always much healthier if you can draw on some moral high ground to justify your cause in the public eye. We tried it on in Afghanistan with how we were lifting the Afghans out of their feudal political system by waving our magic wand of democracy over them. Now, with Libya, it is Lockerbie and terrorism.
Ever since Libya’s ex justice minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, set himself up as leader of Eastern Libya in February with claims that he had proof that Gaddafi was behind the Lockerbie incident, this has provided the opportunity to indulge in a bit of sleight of hand and massaging of public opinion. The Lockerbie crash combines public ignorance, terrorism, fear and righteousness, and, it sells papers into the bargain.
Abdel-Jalil’s claims are simply that, claims. After a month, he has yet to produce one iota of substance.
Is he saying that he was negligent enough to leave the documents back in Tripoli? Once Tripoli falls and no documents are produced, are we then going to hear that Gaddafi must have destroyed them? Perhaps though, documents will be produced, however, we all know what is said about truth and the fog of war. It surely comes as no surprise to anyone that Gaddafi would have been behind an action such as the Lockerbie event if one of his countrymen had carried it out. But, did Abdelbaset al-Megrahi do it?
To say that the case against Mr al-Megrahi has one or two problems would be arch understatement.
There was a break in to Heathrow airside giving access to Pan Am 103’s loading bay area shortly before take off. This incident was reported to the Heathrow authorities at the time but not made public until after the verdict was passed twelve years later.
There is no evidence of any unaccompanied luggage leaving on flight KM180 from Malta’s Luqa airport.
There are question marks over the provenance of documentary evidence provided by Frankfurt Airport (the transit point from Luqa to Heathrow).
Along with other alleged inducements, the Crown’s star witness, Mr Tony Gauci (the proprietor of a Maltese clothes outlet) and his brother, Paul, are accused of having been in receipt of payments of $2,000.000 and $1,000,000 respectively under an American rewards for justice scheme for their testimony (a practice understandably alien to Scots Law, and presumably sufficient to dismiss both Tony and Paul Gauci as witnesses. The US authorities have yet to deny this deal). Tony Gauci’s testimony falls considerably short of being conclusive in terms of his eye witness account, which attempts to match up the identity of the purchaser of clothes from his shop, on account of key discrepancies with regard to the date of the purchase and the height, weight, age and build of the purchaser. Even though he had been prompted by numerous photo spreads containing pictures of Mr al-Megrahi and privy to media photographs of the accused prior to the trial, Mr Gauci could do little better than say that the man in the dock “resembled” the purchaser of the clothes. (...)
The above simply serve to illustrate some of the more prominent worries over the safety of the conviction. To compound this, the judges chose to believe a tale of how a bombing was carried out that defies what any normal person could accept as credible, namely: that Mr al-Megrahi contrived to place an unaccompanied luggage item on to flight KM180 from Malta which was then subsequently transferred at Frankfurt to a feeder flight to Heathrow, again unaccompanied, where it was finally loaded on to Pan Am 103, unaccompanied. Thus defying three security regimes in three separate countries, and the bomb still managed to blow up its target and not either one of the first two flights despite the inevitability of delays etc which would have been par for the course around Christmas time. It is truly hard to believe that 15 lay Scottish jurors could reach anything other than a not guilty verdict in such circumstances. Although impeccably qualified as judges, their Lordships, MacLean, Sutherland and Coulsfield, in arriving at their guilty verdict, displayed an absence of experience when it comes to the role of being a juror. Indeed, to give credence at all to the story of the Luqa-Frankfurt-Heathrow connection, especially as it was presented at Zeist, demonstrates a complete inability to imagine how paramilitaries operate. (...)
Mr al-Megrahi’s first appeal failed, this is true. However, in their judgement, the judges were at pains to point out that they took no account of the sufficiency of evidence since the defence did not require them to do so. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) then referred the case back to the Court of Appeal on six grounds suggesting that no reasonable court would have reached a guilty verdict on the basis of the evidence laid before the Crown by the prosecution. This appeal was then, unnecessarily, dropped by Mr al-Megrahi in his attempt to gain compassionate release.
There has been much speculation regarding the possibility that he may have come under pressure to do so even though the terms of compassionate release do not require an appeal to be dropped to become a beneficiary of it.
The long and the short of it is, therefore, that this conviction has not yet been fully tested in law in the interests of justice.
The best that the Crown, in the form of the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, has been able to offer as a counter to these concerns is a mind-boggling merry-go-round of circular polemic which amounts to little more than: he was convicted, therefore, he did it. So parlous are the arguments offered up by the Crown that one almost feels bound to ask what qualifications are required for the job of Lord Advocate. To reassure us all that the Crown and the police are still taking the Lockerbie/Zeist affair seriously though, even at a point ten years after the conviction, Angiolini also claims that the Dumfries and Galloway police are conducting an on-going review of the investigation. It, in fact, transpires that this is being carried out by one sole officer. In the words of Christine Grahame MSP, this constitutes little better than “file management.” (...)
It is hard to see Gaddafi going anywhere now except to follow Saddam to the gallows. The West will do what it knows best and install someone who is suitably on message until the oil runs out. Who knows what may become of Mr al-Megrahi? A one way ticket to the US’s Guantánamo rest home perhaps?
Whatever transpires, it will make no difference to the case being put before the Scottish parliament by justice campaigners. No amount of dissembling mendacity claimed by politicians and others can ever change the documented historical fact of what took place at Zeist. This conviction simply does not stack up, no matter how good your gas mask.
Despite the distress caused to anyone directly connected to the Pan Am 103 incident, it almost seems wrong to draw a spotlight on to the Lockerbie/Zeist case at a time when Libya is being torn apart by civil war. Nevertheless, David Cameron has chosen to do just that recently in seeking to justify his belligerence by saying of Muammar al-Gaddafi: "The people of Lockerbie know what this man is capable of." (David Cameron - 21/3/2011). Justice Secretary Ken Clark is also now playing the Lockerbie card by saying that we have to bring Gaddafi down to prevent him from seeking "another Lockerbie" in revenge for the UK’s support of the rebels.
It is always much healthier if you can draw on some moral high ground to justify your cause in the public eye. We tried it on in Afghanistan with how we were lifting the Afghans out of their feudal political system by waving our magic wand of democracy over them. Now, with Libya, it is Lockerbie and terrorism.
Ever since Libya’s ex justice minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, set himself up as leader of Eastern Libya in February with claims that he had proof that Gaddafi was behind the Lockerbie incident, this has provided the opportunity to indulge in a bit of sleight of hand and massaging of public opinion. The Lockerbie crash combines public ignorance, terrorism, fear and righteousness, and, it sells papers into the bargain.
Abdel-Jalil’s claims are simply that, claims. After a month, he has yet to produce one iota of substance.
Is he saying that he was negligent enough to leave the documents back in Tripoli? Once Tripoli falls and no documents are produced, are we then going to hear that Gaddafi must have destroyed them? Perhaps though, documents will be produced, however, we all know what is said about truth and the fog of war. It surely comes as no surprise to anyone that Gaddafi would have been behind an action such as the Lockerbie event if one of his countrymen had carried it out. But, did Abdelbaset al-Megrahi do it?
To say that the case against Mr al-Megrahi has one or two problems would be arch understatement.
There was a break in to Heathrow airside giving access to Pan Am 103’s loading bay area shortly before take off. This incident was reported to the Heathrow authorities at the time but not made public until after the verdict was passed twelve years later.
There is no evidence of any unaccompanied luggage leaving on flight KM180 from Malta’s Luqa airport.
There are question marks over the provenance of documentary evidence provided by Frankfurt Airport (the transit point from Luqa to Heathrow).
Along with other alleged inducements, the Crown’s star witness, Mr Tony Gauci (the proprietor of a Maltese clothes outlet) and his brother, Paul, are accused of having been in receipt of payments of $2,000.000 and $1,000,000 respectively under an American rewards for justice scheme for their testimony (a practice understandably alien to Scots Law, and presumably sufficient to dismiss both Tony and Paul Gauci as witnesses. The US authorities have yet to deny this deal). Tony Gauci’s testimony falls considerably short of being conclusive in terms of his eye witness account, which attempts to match up the identity of the purchaser of clothes from his shop, on account of key discrepancies with regard to the date of the purchase and the height, weight, age and build of the purchaser. Even though he had been prompted by numerous photo spreads containing pictures of Mr al-Megrahi and privy to media photographs of the accused prior to the trial, Mr Gauci could do little better than say that the man in the dock “resembled” the purchaser of the clothes. (...)
The above simply serve to illustrate some of the more prominent worries over the safety of the conviction. To compound this, the judges chose to believe a tale of how a bombing was carried out that defies what any normal person could accept as credible, namely: that Mr al-Megrahi contrived to place an unaccompanied luggage item on to flight KM180 from Malta which was then subsequently transferred at Frankfurt to a feeder flight to Heathrow, again unaccompanied, where it was finally loaded on to Pan Am 103, unaccompanied. Thus defying three security regimes in three separate countries, and the bomb still managed to blow up its target and not either one of the first two flights despite the inevitability of delays etc which would have been par for the course around Christmas time. It is truly hard to believe that 15 lay Scottish jurors could reach anything other than a not guilty verdict in such circumstances. Although impeccably qualified as judges, their Lordships, MacLean, Sutherland and Coulsfield, in arriving at their guilty verdict, displayed an absence of experience when it comes to the role of being a juror. Indeed, to give credence at all to the story of the Luqa-Frankfurt-Heathrow connection, especially as it was presented at Zeist, demonstrates a complete inability to imagine how paramilitaries operate. (...)
Mr al-Megrahi’s first appeal failed, this is true. However, in their judgement, the judges were at pains to point out that they took no account of the sufficiency of evidence since the defence did not require them to do so. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) then referred the case back to the Court of Appeal on six grounds suggesting that no reasonable court would have reached a guilty verdict on the basis of the evidence laid before the Crown by the prosecution. This appeal was then, unnecessarily, dropped by Mr al-Megrahi in his attempt to gain compassionate release.
There has been much speculation regarding the possibility that he may have come under pressure to do so even though the terms of compassionate release do not require an appeal to be dropped to become a beneficiary of it.
The long and the short of it is, therefore, that this conviction has not yet been fully tested in law in the interests of justice.
The best that the Crown, in the form of the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, has been able to offer as a counter to these concerns is a mind-boggling merry-go-round of circular polemic which amounts to little more than: he was convicted, therefore, he did it. So parlous are the arguments offered up by the Crown that one almost feels bound to ask what qualifications are required for the job of Lord Advocate. To reassure us all that the Crown and the police are still taking the Lockerbie/Zeist affair seriously though, even at a point ten years after the conviction, Angiolini also claims that the Dumfries and Galloway police are conducting an on-going review of the investigation. It, in fact, transpires that this is being carried out by one sole officer. In the words of Christine Grahame MSP, this constitutes little better than “file management.” (...)
It is hard to see Gaddafi going anywhere now except to follow Saddam to the gallows. The West will do what it knows best and install someone who is suitably on message until the oil runs out. Who knows what may become of Mr al-Megrahi? A one way ticket to the US’s Guantánamo rest home perhaps?
Whatever transpires, it will make no difference to the case being put before the Scottish parliament by justice campaigners. No amount of dissembling mendacity claimed by politicians and others can ever change the documented historical fact of what took place at Zeist. This conviction simply does not stack up, no matter how good your gas mask.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Libyan crisis: Kenneth Clarke warns UK at risk of new Lockerbie
[Many UK news media over the past weekend ran stories on the Libya statement by the UK Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor. The original report is to be found in Saturday's edition of The Guardian. It reads in part:]
Kenneth Clarke has ratcheted up government pressure to depose Colonel Gaddafi by warning that the Libyan leader could stage a Lockerbie-style attack in revenge for Britain's role in the enforcement of the UN resolution if he is left in power.
The Lord Chancellor told The Guardian: "We do have one particular interest in the Maghreb [the western region of North Africa], which is Lockerbie.
"The British people have reason to remember the curse of Gaddafi – Gaddafi back in power, the old Gaddafi looking for revenge, we have a real interest in preventing that."
Clarke says in the interview that the UN resolution does not support regime change, adding that he would regard occupation as madness. But his remarks suggest British ministers recognise they now have a direct security interest in Gaddafi's removal in light of Libya's involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing which killed 259 people on Pan Am flight 103 and 11 on the ground in the Scottish town.
The justice secretary is also extremely frank in admitting that the UK government has little idea how long the conflict will take or how it will be resolved.
He says: "I am not in the Foreign Office, fortunately, so I am not too worried by my remarks. But I am still not totally convinced anyone knows where we are going now".
His remarks came as a Guardian ICM poll shows more people oppose British involvement in the military action in Libya than support it: 42% against, compared with 36% in favour. (...)
Clarke, who was an opponent of the Iraq war and a critic of "havering" over Bosnia, said the UN resolution on Libya "represented a significant event in the evolution of the world order".
Speaking as the cabinet's senior lawyer, he said: "What we seem to have almost established in the international law is the humanitarian basis which can, in exceptional cases, justify intervention by the international community."
He admitted victory would be hard to define: "You cannot answer what is the destination, what it is going to be the moment when you can see the mission is accomplished. It is a little uncertain, but that would have been a dreadful reason for doing nothing." He added that no expert or pundit had foreseen the democratic uprising in Libya: "I don't think any of them saw it coming. I don't think any of them knew why it started or what started it."
He said: "We have already achieved a great deal by stopping the imminent invasion of Benghazi in the nick of time. We would have seen a lot of innocent people, some of them inspired by the best motives, being killed and a quite lunatic regime back in power, acting as an inspiration to others who want to imitate him. So we have already achieved something." (...)
Asked if the public would tolerate a long war, Clarke said: "We have strong public support – but, I mean, the invasion of Iraq had strong public support." The public, he said, "will support our participation so long as they are satisfied we are doing it for reasons we said and we are not getting ourselves into the occupation of another complicated tribal country of uncertain politics." (...)
He said: "We are not going in anyone's dreams, [going] in to start occupying the country. We have ruled it out in the resolution, thank heavens. It would be mad to occupy another country while we are in Afghanistan."
[The Madame Arcati blog on Sunday featured a post entitled Remembering Paul Foot and 'Lockerbie's dirty secret', referring to an article in The Guardian on 31 March 2004.
It is now exactly one month since the last visit to this blog from within Libya.]
Kenneth Clarke has ratcheted up government pressure to depose Colonel Gaddafi by warning that the Libyan leader could stage a Lockerbie-style attack in revenge for Britain's role in the enforcement of the UN resolution if he is left in power.
The Lord Chancellor told The Guardian: "We do have one particular interest in the Maghreb [the western region of North Africa], which is Lockerbie.
"The British people have reason to remember the curse of Gaddafi – Gaddafi back in power, the old Gaddafi looking for revenge, we have a real interest in preventing that."
Clarke says in the interview that the UN resolution does not support regime change, adding that he would regard occupation as madness. But his remarks suggest British ministers recognise they now have a direct security interest in Gaddafi's removal in light of Libya's involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing which killed 259 people on Pan Am flight 103 and 11 on the ground in the Scottish town.
The justice secretary is also extremely frank in admitting that the UK government has little idea how long the conflict will take or how it will be resolved.
He says: "I am not in the Foreign Office, fortunately, so I am not too worried by my remarks. But I am still not totally convinced anyone knows where we are going now".
His remarks came as a Guardian ICM poll shows more people oppose British involvement in the military action in Libya than support it: 42% against, compared with 36% in favour. (...)
Clarke, who was an opponent of the Iraq war and a critic of "havering" over Bosnia, said the UN resolution on Libya "represented a significant event in the evolution of the world order".
Speaking as the cabinet's senior lawyer, he said: "What we seem to have almost established in the international law is the humanitarian basis which can, in exceptional cases, justify intervention by the international community."
He admitted victory would be hard to define: "You cannot answer what is the destination, what it is going to be the moment when you can see the mission is accomplished. It is a little uncertain, but that would have been a dreadful reason for doing nothing." He added that no expert or pundit had foreseen the democratic uprising in Libya: "I don't think any of them saw it coming. I don't think any of them knew why it started or what started it."
He said: "We have already achieved a great deal by stopping the imminent invasion of Benghazi in the nick of time. We would have seen a lot of innocent people, some of them inspired by the best motives, being killed and a quite lunatic regime back in power, acting as an inspiration to others who want to imitate him. So we have already achieved something." (...)
Asked if the public would tolerate a long war, Clarke said: "We have strong public support – but, I mean, the invasion of Iraq had strong public support." The public, he said, "will support our participation so long as they are satisfied we are doing it for reasons we said and we are not getting ourselves into the occupation of another complicated tribal country of uncertain politics." (...)
He said: "We are not going in anyone's dreams, [going] in to start occupying the country. We have ruled it out in the resolution, thank heavens. It would be mad to occupy another country while we are in Afghanistan."
[The Madame Arcati blog on Sunday featured a post entitled Remembering Paul Foot and 'Lockerbie's dirty secret', referring to an article in The Guardian on 31 March 2004.
It is now exactly one month since the last visit to this blog from within Libya.]
Friday, 25 March 2011
Qaddafi unites Arabs against him in bid to oust "mad dog"
[This is the headline over an article published today on the Bloomberg Business Week website. It reads in part:]
President Ronald Reagan called Muammar Qaddafi a “mad dog” in 1986 when he ordered air strikes on Tripoli. A quarter century later, it might be the Libyan leader’s fellow Arabs who ultimately broker his downfall.
After opposing the Reagan response to Qaddafi’s terrorism, the 22-member Arab League is backing the bombing campaign led by Britain, France and the US to ground Libya’s air force and halt Qaddafi’s attempt to crush a rebellion. (...)
Before renouncing nuclear weapons in 2002, Qaddafi was a pariah as one of the earliest backers of terror attacks abroad, according to the US and European governments. His regime has been responsible for the death of at least 440 people in four countries, as well as brutality in Libya.
Reagan’s military action followed the April 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed two US servicemen and a Turkish woman. Four people, including a Libyan diplomat, were convicted by a German court for participating in the attack. (...)
The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people and the only man convicted of the atrocity is a former Libyan intelligence officer. It was followed a year later by the attack on a French UTA plane over Niger, when 170 people died. Qaddafi in 2004 agreed to pay $170 million in compensation, the French government said. (...)
The final break with the Arab world came March 12 when the Arab League, meeting in an emergency session, asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, which has Africa’s largest oil reserves, to thwart attacks by Qaddafi’s forces on civilians.
While Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said on March 12 one or two members of the Cairo-based group had voiced concerns, he reiterated this week that countries remain “committed” to UN efforts to halt the 68-year-old Qaddafi. (...)
In London, a police officer was killed in 1984 by gunfire from inside the Libyan embassy, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported at the time. The Libyan suspects were allowed to leave the country under diplomatic immunity and the U.K. broke diplomatic relations with Qaddafi.
The turnaround in relations with the West started in 1999, when Qaddafi allowed the extradition of two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing. He abandoned nuclear weapons development efforts after 2002 and pledged to destroy a chemical weapons stockpile. He also renounced terrorism.
Libya paid $1.5 billion into a compensation fund for terrorism victims to settle claims related to attacks, including the 1988 bombing of the U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certified in 2008.
The actions led to an easing of sanctions and improved ties with the U.S. and Europe. Western investment to expand Libyan oil production followed, as did Libyan investment in the West ranging from a stake in Italian bank UniCredit SpA to a 1.5 million-pound ($2.4 million) donation to the London School of Economics. (...)
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visited him in his tent in Tripoli in 2004 and said Qaddafi had found “common cause” with the West in fighting terrorism.
Scottish authorities released Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al- Megrahi, the only person convicted of the jetliner attack over Lockerbie, on compassionate grounds in 2009 because he was said to be dying of cancer. He remains alive, according to Scottish officials responsible for monitoring him.
[With another busy weekend in prospect at Gannaga Lodge, it is unlikely that there will be further posts to this blog before Monday, 28 March.]
President Ronald Reagan called Muammar Qaddafi a “mad dog” in 1986 when he ordered air strikes on Tripoli. A quarter century later, it might be the Libyan leader’s fellow Arabs who ultimately broker his downfall.
After opposing the Reagan response to Qaddafi’s terrorism, the 22-member Arab League is backing the bombing campaign led by Britain, France and the US to ground Libya’s air force and halt Qaddafi’s attempt to crush a rebellion. (...)
Before renouncing nuclear weapons in 2002, Qaddafi was a pariah as one of the earliest backers of terror attacks abroad, according to the US and European governments. His regime has been responsible for the death of at least 440 people in four countries, as well as brutality in Libya.
Reagan’s military action followed the April 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed two US servicemen and a Turkish woman. Four people, including a Libyan diplomat, were convicted by a German court for participating in the attack. (...)
The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people and the only man convicted of the atrocity is a former Libyan intelligence officer. It was followed a year later by the attack on a French UTA plane over Niger, when 170 people died. Qaddafi in 2004 agreed to pay $170 million in compensation, the French government said. (...)
The final break with the Arab world came March 12 when the Arab League, meeting in an emergency session, asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, which has Africa’s largest oil reserves, to thwart attacks by Qaddafi’s forces on civilians.
While Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said on March 12 one or two members of the Cairo-based group had voiced concerns, he reiterated this week that countries remain “committed” to UN efforts to halt the 68-year-old Qaddafi. (...)
In London, a police officer was killed in 1984 by gunfire from inside the Libyan embassy, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported at the time. The Libyan suspects were allowed to leave the country under diplomatic immunity and the U.K. broke diplomatic relations with Qaddafi.
The turnaround in relations with the West started in 1999, when Qaddafi allowed the extradition of two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing. He abandoned nuclear weapons development efforts after 2002 and pledged to destroy a chemical weapons stockpile. He also renounced terrorism.
Libya paid $1.5 billion into a compensation fund for terrorism victims to settle claims related to attacks, including the 1988 bombing of the U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certified in 2008.
The actions led to an easing of sanctions and improved ties with the U.S. and Europe. Western investment to expand Libyan oil production followed, as did Libyan investment in the West ranging from a stake in Italian bank UniCredit SpA to a 1.5 million-pound ($2.4 million) donation to the London School of Economics. (...)
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visited him in his tent in Tripoli in 2004 and said Qaddafi had found “common cause” with the West in fighting terrorism.
Scottish authorities released Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al- Megrahi, the only person convicted of the jetliner attack over Lockerbie, on compassionate grounds in 2009 because he was said to be dying of cancer. He remains alive, according to Scottish officials responsible for monitoring him.
[With another busy weekend in prospect at Gannaga Lodge, it is unlikely that there will be further posts to this blog before Monday, 28 March.]
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Shady dealings helped Qaddafi build fortune and regime
[This is the headline over an article in today's edition of The New York Times. It reads in part:]
In 2009, top aides to Col Muammar el-Qaddafi called together 15 executives from global energy companies operating in Libya’s oil fields and issued an extraordinary demand: Shell out the money for his country’s $1.5 billion bill for its role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist attacks.
If the companies did not comply, the Libyan officials warned, there would be “serious consequences” for their oil leases, according to a State Department summary of the meeting.
Many of those businesses balked, saying that covering Libya’s legal settlement with victims’ families for acts of terrorism was unthinkable. But some companies, including several based in the United States, appeared willing to give in to Libya’s coercion and make what amounted to payoffs to keep doing business, according to industry executives, American officials and State Department documents.
The episode and others like it, the officials said, reflect a Libyan culture rife with corruption, kickbacks, strong-arm tactics and political patronage since the United States reopened trade with Colonel Qaddafi’s government in 2004. As American and international oil companies, telecommunications firms and contractors moved into the Libyan market, they discovered that Colonel Qaddafi or his loyalists often sought to extract millions of dollars in “signing bonuses” and “consultancy contracts” — or insisted that the strongman’s sons get a piece of the action through shotgun partnerships.
“Libya is a kleptocracy in which the regime — either the al-Qadhafi family itself or its close political allies — has a direct stake in anything worth buying, selling or owning,” a classified State Department cable said in 2009, using the department’s spelling of Qaddafi.
The wealth that Colonel Qaddafi’s family and his government accumulated with the help of international corporations in the years since the lifting of economic sanctions by the West helped fortify his hold on his country. While the outcome of the military intervention under way by the United States and allied countries is uncertain, Colonel Qaddafi’s resources — including a stash of tens of billions of dollars in cash that American officials believe he is using to pay soldiers, mercenaries and supporters — may help him avert, or at least delay, his removal from power. (...)
In the first few years after trade restrictions were lifted — Colonel Qaddafi had given up his country’s nuclear capabilities and pledged to renounce terrorism — many American companies were hesitant to do business with Libya’s government, officials said. But with an agreement on a settlement over Libya’s role in the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, finally reached in 2008, officials at the United States Commerce Department began to serve as self-described matchmakers for American businesses. (...)
When Qaddafi aides demanded payment for the Lockerbie settlement from oil companies operating in Libya, a State Department cable in February 2009 reported, industry executives had indicated “that smaller operators and service companies might relent and pay.” Several industry officials and someone close to the settlement, all speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the payments went through but declined to identify the businesses.
Other companies also struck costly deals with the government. In 2008, Occidental Petroleum, based in California, paid a $1 billion “signing bonus” to the Libyan government as part of 30-year agreement. A company spokesman said it was not uncommon for firms to pay large bonuses for long-term contracts. (...)
Looking back on the decision in 2004 to resume business dealings, Juan Zarate, a former top White House and Treasury official in the administration of President George W Bush, said that officials had believed then that the benefits of trying to rehabilitate Colonel Qaddafi outweighed the obvious risks. “It was a deal with the devil,” Mr Zarate said.
“The hope was that with normalization, Qaddafi would serve less as the mad dog of the Middle East and more as a partner,” he added. “But I don’t think this is the way anyone would have wanted it to work out.”
In 2009, top aides to Col Muammar el-Qaddafi called together 15 executives from global energy companies operating in Libya’s oil fields and issued an extraordinary demand: Shell out the money for his country’s $1.5 billion bill for its role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist attacks.
If the companies did not comply, the Libyan officials warned, there would be “serious consequences” for their oil leases, according to a State Department summary of the meeting.
Many of those businesses balked, saying that covering Libya’s legal settlement with victims’ families for acts of terrorism was unthinkable. But some companies, including several based in the United States, appeared willing to give in to Libya’s coercion and make what amounted to payoffs to keep doing business, according to industry executives, American officials and State Department documents.
The episode and others like it, the officials said, reflect a Libyan culture rife with corruption, kickbacks, strong-arm tactics and political patronage since the United States reopened trade with Colonel Qaddafi’s government in 2004. As American and international oil companies, telecommunications firms and contractors moved into the Libyan market, they discovered that Colonel Qaddafi or his loyalists often sought to extract millions of dollars in “signing bonuses” and “consultancy contracts” — or insisted that the strongman’s sons get a piece of the action through shotgun partnerships.
“Libya is a kleptocracy in which the regime — either the al-Qadhafi family itself or its close political allies — has a direct stake in anything worth buying, selling or owning,” a classified State Department cable said in 2009, using the department’s spelling of Qaddafi.
The wealth that Colonel Qaddafi’s family and his government accumulated with the help of international corporations in the years since the lifting of economic sanctions by the West helped fortify his hold on his country. While the outcome of the military intervention under way by the United States and allied countries is uncertain, Colonel Qaddafi’s resources — including a stash of tens of billions of dollars in cash that American officials believe he is using to pay soldiers, mercenaries and supporters — may help him avert, or at least delay, his removal from power. (...)
In the first few years after trade restrictions were lifted — Colonel Qaddafi had given up his country’s nuclear capabilities and pledged to renounce terrorism — many American companies were hesitant to do business with Libya’s government, officials said. But with an agreement on a settlement over Libya’s role in the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, finally reached in 2008, officials at the United States Commerce Department began to serve as self-described matchmakers for American businesses. (...)
When Qaddafi aides demanded payment for the Lockerbie settlement from oil companies operating in Libya, a State Department cable in February 2009 reported, industry executives had indicated “that smaller operators and service companies might relent and pay.” Several industry officials and someone close to the settlement, all speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the payments went through but declined to identify the businesses.
Other companies also struck costly deals with the government. In 2008, Occidental Petroleum, based in California, paid a $1 billion “signing bonus” to the Libyan government as part of 30-year agreement. A company spokesman said it was not uncommon for firms to pay large bonuses for long-term contracts. (...)
Looking back on the decision in 2004 to resume business dealings, Juan Zarate, a former top White House and Treasury official in the administration of President George W Bush, said that officials had believed then that the benefits of trying to rehabilitate Colonel Qaddafi outweighed the obvious risks. “It was a deal with the devil,” Mr Zarate said.
“The hope was that with normalization, Qaddafi would serve less as the mad dog of the Middle East and more as a partner,” he added. “But I don’t think this is the way anyone would have wanted it to work out.”
Council sure Megrahi still living in suburban Tripoli home
[What follows is from a report in today's edition of The Scotsman.]
The Lockerbie bomber has had "recent" contact with the Scottish council tasked with keeping tabs on his life licence release.
And the council is satisfied he has not moved home in Libya.
Despite reports that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had been spirited away by the Gaddafi regime, a spokesman for East Renfrewshire Council, the council tasked with monitoring the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, said it is "satisfied that he is not in breach of any licence conditions".
Sources close to the monitoring authority say the supervising officer in the case is satisfied that Megrahi is still at the same address in a Tripoli suburb.
The council contacted the bomber amid reports he had been moved to a safe house by the Gaddafi regime as coalition UN forces targeted air defences around the Libyan capital.
Part of Megrahi's life licence conditions state he must alert the council to any change of address and agree it with it in advance. It has a secure videolink to the bomber, and call him as and when it deems necessary.
The spokesman added: "The contact is when we need to speak to him. We have done. That contact was very recent."
[A useful counterweight to some of the more imaginative material being published in the Western media.]
The Lockerbie bomber has had "recent" contact with the Scottish council tasked with keeping tabs on his life licence release.
And the council is satisfied he has not moved home in Libya.
Despite reports that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had been spirited away by the Gaddafi regime, a spokesman for East Renfrewshire Council, the council tasked with monitoring the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, said it is "satisfied that he is not in breach of any licence conditions".
Sources close to the monitoring authority say the supervising officer in the case is satisfied that Megrahi is still at the same address in a Tripoli suburb.
The council contacted the bomber amid reports he had been moved to a safe house by the Gaddafi regime as coalition UN forces targeted air defences around the Libyan capital.
Part of Megrahi's life licence conditions state he must alert the council to any change of address and agree it with it in advance. It has a secure videolink to the bomber, and call him as and when it deems necessary.
The spokesman added: "The contact is when we need to speak to him. We have done. That contact was very recent."
[A useful counterweight to some of the more imaginative material being published in the Western media.]
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