UN-LIBYA: Britain, US Accept Compromise on Lockerbie Trial

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 24 1998 (IPS) - The U.S. and British governments, in a reversal of their previous hardline support for sanctions against Libya, Monday announced their willingness to consider suspending a U.N. embargo in exchange for a trial in the Netherlands of two Libyan bombing suspects.

U.N. officials confirmed that the two governments contacted Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday to say they would agree to having the suspects, Abdul Basset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, tried by Scottish judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague.

“The secretary-general was requested by the two governments to convey to the Libyan government a letter and enclosures delivered to his deputy … elaborating the American-British proposal,” U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard confirmed.

“He was also asked to provide to the Libyan government any assistance it might require with regards to the physical arrangements for the transfer of the two accused directly to the Netherlands,” Eckhard added.

Libya was yet to respond officially to the offer, the first compromise by London and Washington on the trial of the two suspects linked to the 1988 bombing of Pan American flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people were killed.

However, the proposal is largely similar to one first made in March by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which Libya said it would accept. The March proposal, sent to the United Nations by Zimbabwean Foreign Minister I.S.G. Mudenge, presented three options for a trial, including having the suspects “tried by Scottish judges at the ICJ at the Hague, in accordance with Scottish law”.

The OAU and League of Arab States strongly pushed for some sort of compromise which could lead to the lifting of a travel ban and sanctions on oil-related machinery that were placed on Libya by the UN Security Council in 1992. For years, Britain and the United States – both of which hold veto power in the 15-nation Council – resisted any efforts to lift sanctions short of a trial of the two suspects in either country.

The two nations initially resisted the OAU compromise as well. Earlier this year, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook argued that a trial at the Hague could not be conducted on the lines proposed by the OAU, since Scottish judges would have no legal jurisdiction outside of Scotland.

Instead, Cook invited Annan to send a fact-finding team to Scotland to verify that any trial of the two Libyans there would be free and fair – addressing a key Libyan complaint against handing the suspects over to the British authorities. The team in fact noted the fairness of the Scottish legal system, but Tripoli contended that U.S. and British media coverage, and the imposition of the sanctions itself, had biased any trial there.

The new version of the The Hague compromise could be an attempt to see whether Tripoli intends to accept any trial for al-Megrahi and Fhimah, or simply has been playing for time and undercutting support for the sanctions.

British Ambassador Stephen Gomersall said Monday that, since Libya, the OAU and the Arab League had all pushed for the compromise, “Libya has no excuse to delay further” in handing over the suspects.

If Libya were to agree to hand the two men over for a trial at the ICJ, Gomersall added, the United States and Britain would be prepared to support the “eventual suspension” of the Libya sanctions in a Security Council resolution. Libya has called for all sanctions to be lifted immediately if the suspects are turned over to authorities for a trial.

Although a British victims’ group, led by Dr Jim Swire, has accepted the proposal for a trial at the ICJ – and even sent a delegation to meet with Libyan Col. Muammar Qaddafi to push the compromise – U.S. victims’ groups have been wary of anything short of a U.S. or British trial. “This compromise is a slippery slope,” Daniel Cohen, whose daughter died in the Pan Am bombing, told the media about the The Hague offer.

However, London and Washington may have had no choice but to compromise. In recent months, Arab and African nations have increasingly complained about the Libya sanctions, and U.N. officials confirmed this spring that the embargo was enjoying considerably less respect in the region.

Frustrations over sanctions against Iraq and the stalled Middle East peace process – as well as last week’s US raids on Sudan and Afghanistan – have also added to dwindling support for what some Arab diplomats argue is an attempt to isolate and destabilise several Arab states.