A commentary on the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the murder of 270 people in the Pan Am 103 disaster.
Thursday 20 August 2009
Megrahi release today to prevent 'martyrdom'
The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing will be released today on compassionate grounds but Libya has given an undertaking that there will be no "triumphalism".
The Herald understands that one compelling reason for allowing the Libyan to return to Tripoli is to avoid him dying as a "martyr" in prison and putting Scotland on the map for all the wrong reasons.
The public announcement will be made at 1pm by Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, who has been considering an application for prisoner transfer and for Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer and has less than three months to live, will fly home to his family in time for Ramadan - as The Herald stated last week.
Megrahi, who is serving 27 years in HMP Greenock for the bombing that killed 270 people in December 1988, is expected to fly to Tripoli in a private jet owned by the Libyan government.
The Foreign Office yesterday advised the State Department of the decision.
Despite concerns that Megrahi will be paraded through the streets to a hero's welcome, The Herald understands that Libyan delegates have told ministers that there would be no such triumphalism.
There is also a tacit agreement that the Libyan government will make no comment until after his return and that, even then, it will not use Megrahi as a big part of Colonel Gaddafi's September celebrations for 40 years in power.
Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, the Libyan minister and former ambassador who was key to the talks to resume diplomatic relations with the UK and has been involved in the discussions about Megrahi, was in London yesterday. Obeidi is expected to fly from Luton to collect Megrahi at lunchtime.
[The same newspaper has a further article by Lucy Adams headed "Scotland caught in the middle of an international drama" on the diplomatic manoeuvrings that got us where we are today; and a thoughtful and moving opinion piece by Anne Johnstone entitled "Ability to show compassion is a gift more precious to the giver".]
Wednesday 19 August 2009
Megrahi to be released within hours
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer and has less than three months to live, will fly home to his family in time for Ramadan - as the paper stated last week.
Megrahi, who is serving 27 years in HMP Greenock for the bombing which killed 270 people in December 1988, is expected to fly to Tripoli in a private jet owned by the Libyan Government.
A public announcement is expected at 1pm (BST) - 8am Eastern standard time - on Thursday from Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, who has been considering an application for prisoner transfer and for Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds. (...)
Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, the Libyan Minister and former ambassador who was key to the talks to resume diplomatic relations with the UK and has been involved in the discussions about Megrahi, was in London yesterday. Obeidi usually flies to the UK in a private jet.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We have a strong justice system in Scotland and people can be assured that the Justice Secretary's decisions have been reached on the basis of clear evidence and on no other factors."
[The above are excerpts from a report just posted on the heraldscotland website. I suspect that the author is The Herald's chief reporter, Lucy Adams.
The STV News website has a report that contains the following sentence:
"Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been released from Greenock Prison on compassionate grounds, STV News sources have learned." [The sentence has since been altered to read "will be released".]
Under the headline "Police stage Megrahi departure rehearsal via Prestwick airport", Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm has this afternoon posted an article containing the following sentences:
'A police exercise involving motorcycle outriders and a mock target vehicle with blacked out windows was undertaken last night between Greenock and Prestwick airport. It is understood the exercise was carried out as a rehearsal to prepare for the flight of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad Al Megrahi to Libya, understood to be taking place imminently.
'The convoy were sighted simulating the necessary road and junction closures along the M77 from Glasgow.']
Tuesday 28 July 2015
Verdicts due in Tripoli trial of Gaddafi-era officials
BBC News reports that Saif and eight others have been sentenced to death: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33688391. None of the reports so far available (11.40 am) mentions Obeidi, Zwai and Dorda.
Saturday 22 June 2013
Libya's judges confront the past
Thursday 3 March 2016
If he wanted to go home, he had no real choice
Wednesday 3 June 2015
Verdict awaited in trial of Gaddafi-era officials
Saturday 23 October 2021
‘I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out’
[What follows is the third and final extract from chapter 15 of The Colonel and I: My Life with Gaddafi by Daad Sharab. Articles about this book can be found in The National here and here. The previous extracts on this blog can be read here and here.]
As he was released, al-Megrahi said he bore the people of Scotland no ill will, and thanked the prison staff at Barlinnie and Greenock for their kindness. He received a hero’s welcome back in Tripoli. [RB: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in an article in The New York Times denied that there had been a hero's welcome.] I was in Jordan at the time but watched on television, noticing that al-Megrahi flew home on the same jet I’d helped Gaddafi buy from Prince al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. Also on board was the Colonel’s son, Saif, in his white robes and holding al-Megrahi’s arm aloft as he stepped on to Libyan soil.
Saif was basking in the glory of the triumphant homecoming, although in reality I knew he’d barely been involved. I was seething inside as I watched him steal all the credit, while the real hard workers were nowhere to be seen. Saif regularly went to London, but he never once bothered to hop on a domestic flight to Glasgow to visit al-Megrahi in prison at either Barlinnie or Greenock. The jubilant scenes didn’t go down well in the West, which had requested a restrained welcome, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. It was rare that Libya got the upper hand against America.
However, when he came home I hardly recognised al-Megrahi who was walking with a stick and had to be helped down the steps of the aircraft. He looked nothing like the healthy man I’d last visited a few years earlier. It was said at the time of his release that he would die within three months. In fact he lingered on for another three years, even outliving Gaddafi which no one could have envisaged at the time. I found the outcry from the West over al-Megrahi’s failure to die sooner distasteful. I always felt very sorry for him and never doubted his innocence. What reason did he have to lie to me, an agent of the regime?
In a moment of desperation, he once told me in prison: ‘They would be very happy for me to die here.’ There is a suspicion in my mind that al-Megrahi did not receive very good medical attention in prison, because prostate cancer usually responds well to treatment if it is caught early. He died at his villa in the suburbs of Tripoli, in May 2012, aged 60. I hope he found peace and was able to enjoy precious time with his family. In my eyes al-Megrahi was the 271st Lockerbie victim.
By then the final compensation cheques had been paid to the families, much to the dismay of Gaddafi. Although he appreciated the importance of keeping up the instalments, he often railed against the unfairness and how the handing over of compensation would be interpreted. ‘Why should I do this when Libya is innocent?’ he asked many times.
For those working behind the scenes it was a constant battle to persuade the Colonel to take a pragmatic approach. Finally Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, one of his key advisors on Lockerbie, spelled this out in very direct terms. At one of our regular Lockerbie briefing meetings with Gaddafi, he told the leader: ‘Look, we don’t want to see you suffer the same fate as Saddam Hussein. If the cost is money, then we have a lot of money. Let’s just pay them, get rid of this issue, open up our country and keep it stable. America can do anything it wants. Do you want us to end up watching you on TV like Saddam Hussein?’
It was a very blunt reference to Saddam’s capture and humiliation by US forces, which had so rattled Gaddafi. For all his bluster he knew that America and its allies could topple him at the drop of a hat. The bombing of his compound in 1986 by the Americans was a constant reminder of the West’s power. After al-Obeidi’s intervention the Colonel didn’t make such a fuss about the blood money.
The burning question remains: if al-Megrahi was innocent, as I firmly believe, then who brought down the Pan Am flight?
At the time of the Lockerbie bombing there were loose alliances between various states and organisations. They were generally opposed to the ideals of the West, and pooled resources. Bombing an aircraft is no easy matter, so if one country didn’t have the expertise to carry out an attack it simply funded a group that did. I don’t carry a smoking gun but al-Megrahi, who knew the case inside out and had access to Libya’s files on Lockerbie, was convinced that it was a joint enterprise between Iran, Syria and The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [-General Command]. The shooting down of the Iranian passenger jet by the American warship Vincennes, six months before Lockerbie, was too much of a coincidence. It was the crucial link, but by the time the evidence began to stack up no one wanted to point the finger at Iran or Syria, who had helped Western coalition forces in the first Gulf War. My time on the fringes of international diplomacy taught me that politicians are like shifting sands in the desert.
Sadly I never got the opportunity to see al-Megrahi following his release but I know he intended to present fresh evidence at his appeal, insisting he had nothing to fear or hide. ‘I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out,’ he said.
I am sure the British intelligence services know the truth about Lockerbie, but it has been covered up. Al-Megrahi’s early death was convenient, although his family did eventually get a posthumous appeal. It came as no surprise to me that it was rejected, or that al-Megrahi’s family have called on the British government to release secret files which implicate Iran. Justice has not been done and, for political reasons, I fear we may never learn the truth.
In another recent development the US has named and charged another so-called suspect, Abu Agila Mohammad Masud. I don’t claim to know every member of the Libyan intelligence services but I can tell you I never encountered him during my many years in Libya, or heard his name mentioned by Gaddafi. Why did the Americans choose to make this announcement on the 32nd anniversary of Lockerbie? In my opinion it is nothing more than another crass political stunt.
Wednesday 29 July 2015
Lockerbie and the Tripoli verdicts
Monday 2 May 2011
Britain expels Libya ambassador
Britain has ordered the expulsion of the Libyan ambassador to London, Omar Jelban, in retaliation for an attack on the British embassy by a pro-Gaddafi crowd in Tripoli.
Jelban has been given 24 hours to leave the country.
"I condemn the attacks on the British embassy premises in Tripoli as well as the diplomatic missions of other countries," said the foreign secretary, William Hague. "The Vienna convention requires the Gaddafi regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli. By failing to do so that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations. I take the failure to protect such premises very seriously indeed."
The statement went on: "As a result, I have taken the decision to expel the Libyan ambassador. He is persona non grata pursuant to article 9 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations and has 24 hours to leave the country."
According to Foreign Office sources, the building housing both the British embassy residence and its chancellery was burned down by a mob early on Sunday. (...)
The Gaddafi regime appears to have mounted a symbolic attack on empty diplomatic residences and embassies in Tripoli. There are no British diplomats in the Libyan capital.
[During most of the run-up to the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi in August 2009, Omar Jelban was chargé d'affaires in the Libyan embassy in London. There had been no ambassador since the departure of Mohammed Bel Kassem Zwai (one of the officers who, along with Gaddafi, staged the coup against King Idris in 1969, and the only one who is still prominent in the regime). Jelban was not, in my view, a significant player in the 2008/2009 political manoeuvrings. On the Libyan side the big hitters were Moussa Koussa and Abdul Ati al-Obeidi.]
Monday 30 March 2009
SNP in secret bid to send bomber home
The SNP has been engaged in secret talks that would allow the Lockerbie bomber to be freed and sent home to Libya.
A series of high-level meetings has taken place between senior SNP advisers and Libya as the Scottish Executive prepares to sign a crucial international pact on prison transfers this week.
The flurry of diplomatic activity, including at least one meeting this month, also comes as the medical condition of the man serving life for the Lockerbie bombing continues to deteriorate.
The cancer that has struck down Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi has spread to his spine and pelvis.
Officially, the meetings are taking place between the UK Foreign Office and Libyan officials, as Scotland is not a sovereign state.
But The Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal that Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has instructed his top official, Robert Gordon, director general of the Executive's justice department, to play a key role in the negotiations. Meetings between Mr Gordon and a Libyan delegation began last October and continued in November, January and earlier this month. The talks, in London and Edinburgh, have included dialogue with US senators.
Mr MacAskill and British officials are keen to ease US fears that Megrahi could be released to spend his last few months as a free man. Instead, the Libyan's legal team are being encouraged to apply for a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) that would see him serve the remainder of his 27-year sentence in Libya. The talks have accelerated in advance of a second appeal by Megrahi against his conviction for the murder of 270 people in 1988, due to start at the end of next month.
The complex appeal is expected to take up to a year but Megrahi's health has deteriorated so much there is speculation he may be forced to abandon the fight to clear his name. Megrahi is keen to do so in court, but as his condition worsens he is facing a dilemma over whether to continue with his appeal and face dying in prison in Scotland or abandoning the case and applying for the transfer likely to represent his only chance to spend time with his family.
Last night, officials confirmed the PTA signed between the UK and Libya in November is expected to be ratified 'in early April' and responsibility for Megrahi, should he seek a transfer, will pass to Mr MacAskill.
A spokesman for the Justice Secretary confirmed the dialogue with the Libyans and Americans. She said: 'At the request of the Libyan government, there have been meetings between Executive officials and officials of the Libyan government. 'These have been concerned with factual matters of the Scottish judicial system and how these relate to prisoner transfer agreements and other matters.
'A meeting has also taken place with US senators' representatives. This was also concerning factual matters related to the Scottish judicial system. We understand there have been similar meetings with UK Government officials.'
Mr Gordon has played a vital role in the talks, attended by top Libyan officials and Foreign Office personnel. Sources close to the Libyan delegation, which included deputy foreign minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, said Mr Gordon had given them every encouragement to push for a transfer. One said: 'He told them in fairly plain language that if an application came in it would be granted.'
The ratification of the PTA involves the document being laid before Parliament for 21 days to give MPs the chance to raise any issues.
The UK Ministry of Justice said it expected the UK and Libya to complete the 'relevant constitutional arrangements' by the start of April. A spokesman confirmed that any bid to transfer a prisoner would be for Scottish ministers to decide.
Professor Robert Black, QC, the architect of the trial under Scots Law in a neutral country, said: 'It has been my view for some months that every effort was being made to push Megrahi down the prisoner transfer route to avoid the embarrassment that would follow for our justice system and our governments if the appeal went ahead.'
Megrahi's legal team sought bail pending his appeal in the wake of the cancer revelation, but this was refused by the Court of Appeal. Now the Scottish authorities are expected to jump at the chance to return Megrahi to Libya, as a condition of the deal is that the prisoner must drop any legal proceedings.
The planned appeal has the potential to humiliate the Crown Office and to expose conspiracy and dirty tricks involving UK and US intelligence agents and the Scottish police. Dr Jim Swire has campaigned for 20 years for the truth since the murder of his daughter Flora. He said: 'If Megrahi agrees to seek a transfer and drop the appeal, his family will be labelled for life as the family of the Lockerbie bomber.
'I have been certain for some time the authorities were intent on pushing him down that road. The timing of the ratification of the agreement, a few weeks before the appeal, doesn't feel like a coincidence.'
Sunday 3 April 2011
Libya's 'torturer-in-chief' offered asylum in Britain in return for help toppling Gaddafi
Libya’s feared ‘torturer-in-chief’ has been offered asylum in the UK in return for his help to topple Muammar Gaddafi and his hated regime.
The secret offer to Libya’s former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, was made while he was still in Tripoli and helped persuade him to seek sanctuary in Britain.
But any promise of special protection for one of Gaddafi’s most notorious henchmen has provoked anger from those who want Koussa, 62, put on trial for his alleged crimes. (...)
MI6 officers first made contact with Koussa, who has been linked with the Lockerbie bombing and the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London, in the first few days after the UN-sanctioned attacks on Gaddafi’s military machine on March 19.
A source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Central to the enticements was the prospect of living in safety in the UK under the protection of the asylum laws. Koussa’s greatest concern was what would happen to him once he left Gaddafi.
‘This was not a long, drawn-out operation – once contact had been made it all happened pretty quickly.’
Koussa fled Tripoli last Monday night after telling colleagues that he was seeking medical help in Tunisia. The convoy of official vehicles crossed the Tunisian border and went on to Tunis’s Djerba-Zaris airport. (...)
Koussa is still being questioned by MI6 officers and diplomats in a safe house at a secret location in the Home Counties. His wife, at least one of his children and his extended family remain in Tripoli.
He also has two daughters educated and living in the UK and a son who is a neurosurgeon working in the US.
The Foreign Office refused to discuss whether any kind of offer had been made to Koussa and reiterated that there would be no immunity from prosecution. But a spokesman added: ‘Discussions are ongoing on a range of issues, obviously (immigration) status is an important issue.’ (...)
Foreign Office officials will meet Scottish police and prosecutors tomorrow about their formal request to interview Koussa over the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie which killed 270 people in December 1988. Prosecutors are hoping to charge six Libyan intelligence agents in connection the attack and believe he holds vital evidence.
Mike O’Brien, a former Labour Foreign Office Minister who negotiated with Koussa in 2003 over Lockerbie compensation, weapons of mass destruction and the investigation into WPC Fletcher, said he expected him to claim asylum.
But he also said it would be difficult to prove any of the charges against him, raising the prospect of Koussa living in Britain as a free man.
He said: ‘Koussa was head of the organisation (the Libyan intelligence service) that was blamed for much of this, but proving what he knew and when he knew it will be more difficult.
‘Although people have to be brought to justice, it is sometimes difficult to find the evidence.’ (...)
MI6 is now targeting other key members of the regime, including Abu Zayd Dorba, the head of external intelligence, Mohamed al-Zwai, secretary general of the People’s Congress and Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, a former prime minister. (...)
Mustafa Gheriani, spokesman for the Libyan revolutionary council, said: ‘We want to bring him to court. This guy has so much blood on his hands. There are documented killings, torturing. We want him tried here. International law gives us that right.’
Should Koussa be granted asylum, it will not protect him from extradition to other countries where he is wanted in connection with terrorism offences.
America may want to seek his trial over Lockerbie, and relatives of the 170 victims of the 1989 airliner bombing in Niger want Koussa questioned over that attack.
Tuesday 25 March 2014
Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi on the release of Megrahi: four years ago, with an update
“I asked him about Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, the man convicted in the Pan Am 103 atrocity, in which 270 were killed, when the flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. The Scottish Judiciary released Megrahi in August on compassionate grounds [RB: the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, who released Megrahi, is a minister in the Scottish Government, not a member of the Scottish judiciary], as doctors gave him just three months to live. Seven months later he is still alive. Gaddafi said, ‘The Americans shouldn’t be angry because this man is innocent, I believe he is innocent. Second, it was not a Libyan decision to release him. They should go to the UK and discuss the issue with the UK and not Libya. And the third issue--he is very sick. This is a fact. But he is still alive. You should ask God about that.’”
[From an interview by Amy Kellogg with Saif Gaddafi, reported in the Live Shots section of the Fox News website. In a later article on the same website, Ms Kellogg writes:]
Though Libya renounced its weapons of mass destruction program back in 2003, a US Embassy didn’t open in Tripoli until late 2008. That was after Libya paid compensation for the families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103. (...)
Despite the normalization of relations, there is much historic baggage weighing on the new relationship, including painful memories of the 1988 Pan Am 103 incident, and for the Libyans, the bombing of Leader Moammar Gaddafi’s home by the Americans in 1986.
When a Scottish court released the man convicted in the Pan Am 103 bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, on compassionate grounds, as doctors determined he had just three months left to live, many Americans reacted angrily, as it brought back painful memories. US Ambassador Gene Cretz acknowledges that.
“There’s no doubt that the impact of that picture of Mr. Megrahi being greeted here struck at the very heart of American sensitivities not only in Washington but throughout our country, because it was a reminder of a very very painful past and a present that continues to be painful for the families who lost relatives and friends in that incident and others.”
I asked Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader about the release of Megrahi, who is still alive seven months after his release.
"Americans shouldn't be angry because this man is innocent. I believe he is innocent. Second, it was not a Libyan decision to release him. They should go to the UK and discuss the issue with the UK not Libya. The third issue, he's very sick. This is a fact. That he is still live you should ask God."
Many Libyans make the distinction between Libya’s “accepting responsibility” for the bombing, and actually being guilty of the atrocity, considering Megrahi the fall guy. Yet a Scottish court convicted Megrahi and that fact has not changed. [RB: But an official Scottish body, the SCCRC, has said that that conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice.]
Cretz said even though it was a Scottish court that released him [RB: it was a Scottish Government minister, not a Scottish court], that act caused some damage to US-Libya relations.
“It was a setback no doubt it did impact on relations and this is one of the reasons that we are trying to brick by brick , day by day, discussion by discussion, lay down a path of normalization with this country. So that after 30 years of estrangement and hostility we are able to begin to find a language to talk to each other and to also make each other aware of our cultural and political imperatives and sensitivities.”
[RB (2014): Shortly after this the “cultural and political imperatives and sensitivities” of the United States embraced logistical and military support for the overthrow of Gaddafi, with the dire results for Libya that are now increasingly apparent.
Saif al-Islam is amongst those who are due to go on trial in Libya on 14 April. Also among the accused is Abuzed Omar Dorda. In the reports I see no mention of important Lockerbie figures Abdul Ati al-Obeidi and Mohammed al-Zwai, but I suspect that they will also feature.]