POLITICS-LIBYA: Qadhafi Ready to Hand Over Lockerbie Suspects

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20 1999 (IPS) - Libya sent a letter to UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan Friday offering to hand over two suspects in the decade-old case of the bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie for trial in the Netherlands.

UN officials confirmed in a statement the delivery of a letter written by Libyan Foreign Minister Omar Mustafa Muntasser expressing “the readiness of Libya to proceed with the transfer of the two accused (in the Lockerbie case) to the Netherlands”.

Annan was “is greatly encouraged by this development and the necessary arrangements will now initiated by the (UN) secretariat,” the statement said.

Earlier Friday, South African President Nelson Mandela met with Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi in Tripoli and announced that Libya would turn over the two bombing suspects, Abdel Basset al- Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, to UN custody “on or before Apr 6, 1999”.

The announcement boosted hopes that the United Nations would be able to turn over al-Megrahi and Fhimah to the Netherlands within the next three weeks, so that they may be tried by a Scottish judge and court under a special arrangement.

Mandela, reading from Muntasser’s letter, said that Libya accepted that, if found guilty, the two men would be placed in detention in Scotland under special UN supervision.

The tentative agreement came after months of lobbying by UN officials and South African and Saudi Arabian envoys – including Mandela himself – designed to convince Libya that the Netherlands trial would end UN sanctions that have been in place against Libya since 1992.

Qadhafi confirmed after his meeting with Mandela that Tripoli was now prepared to trust the mediators’ assurances that the sanctions would end, and that the trial would not be used as a pretext to put more pressure against the Libyan government, as it had feared earlier.

“When Saudi King Fahd and President Mandela asked me to let it into their hands, it would not be reasonable for me to set conditions,” Qadhafi said.

But he added that he was assured that “sanctions imposed on Libya since 1992 would be suspended as soon as the two suspects arrive in the Netherlands and would be lifted within 90 days after the UN secretary-general reports to the Security Council”.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard confirmed that UN legal officials have developed a set of procedures for handing over al-Megrahi and Fhimah to the Netherlands, which will be put into practise once Libya formally decides to hand the men over.

At that point, US and British prosecutors are prepared to accuse the two men of orchestrating the 1988 bombing of Pan American flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people were killed.

Lawyers for the suspects deny their involvement, and several sources – including one BBC documentary – pointed to members of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command as the potential culprits.

Nevertheless, for years, the most intractable problem has been the effort to convince Qadhafi to allow the suspects to be tried outside of Libya.

A UN air travel ban and the prohibition of some oil-related machinery to Libya have pinched the oil-rich government over the past seven years, but Tripoli remained adamant that al-Megrahi and Fhimah could not receive a fair trial in either the United States or Britain.

A compromise for a trial in the Netherlands – first proposed by African and Arab states weary of the lengthy embargo – was finally accepted by the US and British governments last year, although Libya promptly became suspicious of the trial arrangements.

The US and British governments warned that, if Libya did not accept the Netherlands deal by the end of March, they would consider tougher sanctions against Libya – a hard sell given that UN officials have reported that the current sanctions regime is already weakening.