POLITICS-LIBYA: All Sides Hope for Deal on Lockerbie Suspects

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 1998 (IPS) - The U.S. and British governments Monday called on Libya to accept without further delay a plan to try two men suspected of involvement in the bombing 10 years ago of Pan American flight 103.

The two governments commemorated the tenth anniversary of the explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland – in which 270 people died – by threatening to impose new sanctions on Tripoli if it does not agree to hand over the suspects by February.

“In February, the U.N. Security Council will hold its regularly scheduled review of Libya sanctions,” noted U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh. “If by that time, the government of Libya has not handed over the suspects for trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands, we will seek additional measures to compel compliance.”

“We have made it clear that our patience is not unlimited,” added British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock.

U.N. officials believed Tripoli intended to allow the two men, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, to stand trial before a Scottish judge at a military base in the Netherlands. Just last week, Libya’s People’s Congress voted to accept the U.S.-British proposal for a Netherlands trial, six years after the same body had voted never to hand over the suspects.

Yet Libyan officials continued to seek assurances from U.N. legal advisers that the suspects’ safety would be guaranteed, and were trying to win a guarantee that, even if they were found guilty, al-Megrahi and Fhimah would serve their sentences in Libya and not Scotland. This was unacceptable to the United States and Britain.

“If acquitted, the two accused would be free to return to Libya; if found guilty, they would be sent to prison in Scotland,” the British government said in a statement released Monday. “This is logical and reasonable.”

Libya, however, remained wary of allowing the suspects – who are believed to have been members of Libya’s intelligence agency – to be imprisoned outside its borders. Despite the effort that officials like U.N. legal chief Hans Corell have made in clarifying the terms of the U.S.-British proposal, that demand could still prove to be the deal-breaker.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who recently returned from a visit to Libya in which he met its ruler, Col. Muammar Qaddafi, cautioned that “it is regrettable that, ten years after the event, we have not been able to get to the truth.”

Yet the U.N. chief appeared optimistic about new developments like the actions of the People’s Congress. “I had a good discussion with the Libyan leadership,” Annan said last week. “They have been given all the assurances that are necessary … My sense when I left Libya was that we were moving forward.”

U.N. officials had hoped that, in light of the tenth aniversary of the bombing, Tripoli would at least signal that the suspects would soon be handed over to stand trial. But if they were disappointed that the anniversary date passed without event in Libya, officials were confident that the movement toward a trial continued apace.

“I had hoped that (the decision) would come before this date – the anniversary – but I have not lost hope,” Annan said Monday.

In Lockerbie Monday, residents paid homage to the victims of the bombing, which killed 13 residents of the small Scottish town in addition to all 257 passengers of the Pan American flight. U.S. President Bill Clinton met with U.S. families of the victims at Arlington National Cemetery in Virgina to assure them that justice would be done.

Nevertheless, the 15-nation U.N. Security Council was divided about what to do if there continued to be no progress on a trial by the time that body reviews Libyan sanctions in February. Although the United States and Britain wanted additional sanctions, Russia, France and China, as well as most African and Arab nations, favoured an end to the penalties already in place.

Since 1992, the Council has banned all direct air travel to or from Libya, and since 1993, a ban on some oil-related machinery also has been in effect.

Last year, African and Arab states began to criticise the duration of the sanctions, with South African President Nelson Mandela leading efforts to find a compromise to the previous proposals of a U.S. or British trial for the suspects. The result was the acceptance in August by London and Washington of the compromise of a Netherlands trial by a Scottish court – an idea first developed by the Organisation of African Unity and the Libyans.

Libyan Ambassador Abuzed Dorda, however, has denounced the specifics of the U.S.-British compromise, comparing it to honey “with a dose of poison” in it.