Lockerbie bomber release stirs diplomatic dispute

Saturday 22nd August, 06:04 AM JST

LONDON —

The release of the only man convicted of blowing up a Pan Am flight in 1988 has brought high drama and controversy: the jeering mob outside a Scottish prison, the cheering crowd at a Tripoli airport, the furious families of the 270 people who died in the Lockerbie bombing.

Britain on Friday condemned the “upsetting” scenes of jubilation in Tripoli at the return of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and considered canceling a royal visit to Libya as a sign of displeasure. President Barack Obama said the warm welcome in Libya was “highly objectionable.”

Despite the strong words, the diplomatic end of the decades-long Lockerbie saga is unlikely to damage steadily warming relations between the West and Libya, a country once reviled as a pariah state.

“It will introduce a note of caution in the West’s dealing with Libya,” said Diederik Vandewalle, a Libya specialist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. “I don’t think it will have much of an impact at all.”

Thousands of young men greeted al-Megrahi’s plane at a Tripoli airport after he was released from a Scottish prison Thursday on compassionate grounds. Some threw flower petals as the 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent stepped from the jet.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned the scenes as “deeply distressing,” and said the way Moammar Gadhafi’s government behaved in the next few days would help determine whether Libya is accepted back into the international fold.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown had written to the Libyan leader before al-Megrahi’s release urging Libya to “act with sensitivity” when he returned.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said footage of al-Megrahi’s arrival was “tremendously offensive to the survivors that, as I said, lost a loved one in 1988.”

“I think the images that we saw in Libya yesterday were outrageous and disgusting. We continue to express our condolences to the families that lost a loved one as a result of this terrorist murder,” he told reporters.

Gibbs said the White House had been in contact with Libyan authorities. “We’ve registered our outrage. We have discussed with the Libyans about what we think is appropriate. We’ll continue to watch the actions of this individual and the Libyan government.”

Yet by Libyan standards, al-Megrahi’s welcome was relatively muted. Hundreds of people waiting in the crowd for his plane were rushed away by authorities at the last minute, and the arrival was not aired live on state TV.

It was an unusually low-key approach for a country that used to snap up any opportunity to snub the West and could easily bring out hundreds of thousands to cheer if it chose to. It suggested that Libya is wary of hurting its ties with the U.S. and Europe and had listened to Obama’s warning not to give al-Megrahi a hero’s welcome.

“It seemed as some form of last-minute compromise between those who felt it their patriotic duty to welcome him and those in the Libyan hierarchy who wanted to heed the demands of the U.S. that it should be low-key,” said Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Libya.

“There was no Libyan dignitary to receive him, and no formal reception. This is compulsory in Arab hospitality, so the absence of a welcoming party is quite significant,” he added.

Al-Megrahi is the only man convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The explosion of a bomb hidden in the cargo hold killed all 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground in Britain’s worst terrorist attack.

In an interview on Friday with the Times of London newspaper, al-Megrahi said he had not told his 86-year-old mother that he is terminally ill. The newspaper said he had requested that reporters didn’t tell her of his condition.

“This was my hope and wish—to be back with my family before I pass away ... I always believed I would come back if justice prevailed,” al-Megrahi was quoted as telling the newspaper at his home in the Dimachk district of Tripoli.

Libya and Britain have acted to make al-Megrahi’s release as smooth and understated as possible.

Announcing it Thursday, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said he was acutely aware of the bereaved families’ pain, and stressed that he had made the decision only on narrow legal grounds. Cancer specialists have given al-Megrahi less than three months to live, and it is established legal practice to release prisoners that close to death on compassionate grounds.

There have been 30 requests for compassionate release in Scotland over the last decade, 23 of which were approved. Al-Megrahi also was released just in time to arrive home for the start of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.

MacAskill said while “those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive ... Mr. al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power.”

Britain, meanwhile, walked a fine line _ condemning al-Megrahi’s reception without criticizing the decision to free him, which was made in Edinburgh under Scotland’s separate judicial system.

The BBC reported that Britain was considering canceling a planned visit to Libya by Prince Andrew, who has visited the country several times in his role as a British trade ambassador. Andrew’s office said a visit for next month was in the planning stages and that Buckingham Palace was taking advice from the Foreign Office.

The Foreign Office would not confirm that the visit would be canceled.

British officials also refuted claims the release was made to improve relations and bolster commercial ties—a view held by some victims’ relatives in the U.S.

Miliband said any suggestion that the release was spurred by commercial interests was “a slur both on myself and on the government.”

While Britain does have oil interests in Libya—notably a $900 million exploration deal between BP PLC and Libya’s National Oil Co—they are small compared to investments by Italy’s Eni SpA.

Although the legal story of Lockerbie is now over, some argue that the full truth about the attack may never be known. Although Libya accepted formal responsibility for the bombing, many there see al-Megrahi as an innocent victim scapegoated by the West.

The Libyan’s lawyers have argued the attack was the result of an Iranian-financed Palestinian plot, and a 2007 Scottish judicial review of al-Megrahi’s case found grounds for an appeal of his conviction.

Some Lockerbie victims’ relatives in Britain were disappointed when al-Megrahi dropped his appeal against his conviction, which he had to do in order to be freed. They had hoped new details about the bombing would come out at a future trial.

Even as he left prison, al-Megrahi protested his innocence.

“I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear _ all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do,” he said in a statement.

Scottish prosecutors formally dropped their appeal against the jail term imposed on the Lockerbie bomber. They had called the 27-year sentence too lenient and sought to have it extended.

Their appeal is now irrelevant. Al-Megrahi is free after serving just eight years.

Al-Megrahi’s trial at a special Scottish court set up in The Netherlands, which came after years of diplomatic maneuvering, was a step toward normalizing relations between the West and Libya, which spent years under U.N. and U.S. sanctions because of the Lockerbie bombing.

Over the next few years, Gadhafi renounced terrorism, dismantled Libya’s secret nuclear program, accepted his government’s responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims’ families.

Western energy companies—including Britain’s BP—then moved into Libya in an effort to tap the country’s vast oil and gas wealth.

___

Associated Press Writers Tarek el-Tablawy in Tripoli and Karolina Tagaris and Raphael G. Satter in London contributed to this report.

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Latest 15 of 32 Total Comments Show All

dreamdrifter at 12:20 PM JST - 22nd August

@ ChrisBiggins

The Americans may not have a right to interfere, but they certainly have the right to voice their opinions about it. Which is all they have done in this instance.
spudman at 12:38 PM JST - 22nd August

Voicing threats is surely interfering. Opinions go ahead, threats back off.
shinjukuboy at 12:46 PM JST - 22nd August

Americans always interfere fair and square!
tigris at 03:31 PM JST - 22nd August

it's not revenge, it's justice. A civilised country has a judicial system where the punishment meets the crime. [...] So in retrospect, compassion was shown towards this man who was convicted of the deaths of 189 people

270 people were killed. You only count 189 people - the Americans. As usual. Where is your justice when the US shoots a civilian airliner out of the sky killing 290. Oh I forgot, they are not people, but mere "oriental human beings".
Madverts at 04:06 PM JST - 22nd August

Bah.

Loads of inocent people were killed a long time ago, only one person became the scapegoat face of the attrocity, and the evidence that convicted him was shaky.....

I don't have a problem showing compassion that the terrorists don't even understand or posess.

To many people get hung up with revenge - knowing how to move on from any hopeless situation is far more intelligent if you ask me.
Madverts at 04:07 PM JST - 22nd August

That said, Ghadafi is an ass for making this high-profile. It's not fa from a hero's welcome. He should have been whisked away to snuff it in private.
DeepAir65 at 04:15 PM JST - 22nd August

They guy is dying why make the British tax payer pay for his medical care when he can go home and receive none?

I am pretty sure he would have been more comfortable (medically speaking) in the UK than in Libya.

The thing that surprises me most is that the US gets on it's high horse about being a Christian country yet very rarely displays any Christian values when it comes to things like compassion. Double standards I say.

The thing that upset me the most was what a bore that minister was extending his 15 minutes of fame.
lostrune2 at 05:16 PM JST - 22nd August

Just remember, if any of youz or your countrymen ever get caught by one of the US' "stupid" laws, don't expect your country to interfere. (Some of those "stupid" laws do extend beyond borders.) ;-)
lunchmeat at 10:28 PM JST - 22nd August

Those who are merciful to the cruel will be cruel to the merciful.
LIBERTAS at 02:23 AM JST - 23rd August

The "convicted" Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, says that he will prove his innocence in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland that killed 270 people.

Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, said that he has sufficient evidence that would exonerate him from any involvement in the bombing.

"If there is justice in (Britain) I would be acquitted or the verdict would be quashed because it was unsafe. There was a miscarriage of justice," said Megrahi.

I, for one, am prepared to hear that evidence. "Convicted" doesn't necessarily mean he did it. Nor does "believed to have done it." Take L.H. Oswald for example.... Surely we can apply science and let the evidence tell us what really happened over Lockerbie, and by whom it was done.
LIBERTAS at 03:16 AM JST - 23rd August

And, let's look at how the BBC reported the Lockerbie investigation, and its possible authors way back in 2000: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/777974.stm These folks are hardly given to fantastic conspiracy theories, are they? The Beeb? The MotherCorp herself?

Pan Am's own internal investigation is believed to have concluded that the Lockerbie bomb was targeted specifically to kill a small band of US Defence Intelligence Agency operatives (including Major Charles McKee) who had uncovered a drugs ring run by a CIA unit in Lebanon. According to Time Magazine, Charles McKee's mother suspects that it was a government action that indirectly led to her only son's death.

Beulah McKee is quoted as saying: "For three years, I've had a feeling that if Chuck hadn't been on that plane, it wouldn't have been bombed... I've never been satisfied at all by what the people in Washington told me."

In Beirut, McKee was a military attache assigned to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

In his book, Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103, Scottish radio reporter David Johnston described how CIA agents helicoptered into Lockerbie shortly after the crash. They were looking for McKee's suitcase.

"Having found part of their quarry," Johnston wrote, "the CIA had no intention of following the exacting rules of evidence employed by the Scottish police. They took the suitcase and its contents into the chopper and flew with it to an unknown destination."

The drugs-ring is said to have been set up by Israeli Mossad agents.

Reportedly, the drugs ring involved 'CIA-asset' Monzer al-Kassar, a Syrian with links to the brother of Syria's President Assad.

Reportedly Monzer al-Kassar was involved with Lt-Colonel Oliver North, of Iran-Contra fame.

Victor Marchetti, former executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director, and co-author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, said of the plot against PanAm 103: "The Mossad knew about it and didn't give proper warning."

Anyone who thinks that some (now prostate-cancered) geezer blew this plane up on a whim, of for Mo G. in Tripoli, needs to do more homework.
urufuls at 08:10 AM JST - 23rd August

tigris - you are correct the article does state 270 people. My post was in reply to another poster where they mention 189 Americans. I misread and misinterpreted this.

What I don't think I misinterpret is you having a slight if not full out bias against the Americans? I did not mention anything in my post about Americans, just a number. What is the meaning to bring out racist comments such as "mere oriental human beings"? I believe you are pulling out meanings that do not exist in this discussion.

Back on topic, again, I would like to investigate the topics leading up to the conviction of this man.
tigris at 08:54 AM JST - 23rd August

urufuls

I wrote ...mere "oriental human beings" not "mere oriental human beings". Visually easy to overlook but big difference. I suggest that you google "oriental human beings" to learn where this phrase comes from. Don't forget to include the quotation marks. The origin of this phrase also explains my "slight if not full out bias" when Americans count non-American victims of terrorism and war - if they count them at all.
tigris at 09:18 AM JST - 23rd August

My posts are on topic. The underlining suggestion is that there wouldn't be such a big dispute or fuzz if all victims were non-Americans. History shows that there is no such thing as "justice for all" in the American psyche.
urufuls at 10:40 AM JST - 23rd August

tigris - while I will not get into a battle regarding punctuation with you, I will say that what you suggest, (that there wouldn't be such a big dispute if all victims were non-Americans), does have some basis. But only because of this is a sweeping generalisation that only Americans get upset and demand justice when their fellow Americans are the victims of terrorism. Why would ****only Americans be upset? This is something that the American media hypes up, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world. Were the surviving families of other nationalities just merely non-plussed by this terrorist act? Your first comment to me suggests that I favour one nation over another in this context, which I do not.

Moderator: Back on topic please.