Email links Lockerbie bomber's prison transfer to £400m Libyan arms deal

Tony Blair with Muammar Gaddafi in May 2007. 

Πηγή: The Guardian
July 28 2013
By Andrew Sparrow

Document emerges from 2008 showing agreement 'ready for signature' as soon as purchase of air defence system concluded.

An email has emerged suggesting a connection between the prisoner transfer deal negotiated between Libya and the last Labour government, which ultimately paved the way for the release of the Lockerbie bomberAbdelbaset al-Megrahi, and a £400m arms deal.

The document, which shows that Sir Vincent Fean, the then British ambassador to Libya, wrote to Tony Blair in June 2008 saying that the prisoner transfer agreement was "ready for signature in London" as soon as Libya went ahead with the purchase of an air defence system, was obtained by the Sunday Telegraph.

Blair was no longer prime minister at the time, but Fean mentioned the two issues in a 1,300-word briefing for Blair before a visit to Tripoli where he was meeting Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator.

The prisoner transfer agreement was eventually signed in November 2008. It did not directly trigger the release of Megrahi, but it enabled the Scottish government to release him on compassionate grounds in August 2009 because he was suffering from terminal cancer. The arms deal was never concluded.

The release of Megrahi, who eventually died in May 2012, provoked outrage in the US and elsewhere. At the time ministers rejected claims that the decision to allow him to return home was influenced by commercial concerns, but the new email, obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, suggests the Foreign Office was trying to link the two issues.

Before he resigned as prime minister, Blair met Gaddafi in Libya in May 2007. At that meeting the Libyans agreed they would buy a £400m missile defence system from MBDA, a weapons manufacturer part-owned by BAE Systems.

The following year, in his email to Blair, Fean said that he hoped that the former prime minister would raise this with Gaddafi in his meeting, which was primarily about matters relating to Africa. Fean wrote: "There is one bilateral issue which I hope TB [Tony Blair] can raise, as a legacy issue. On 29 May 07 in Sirte, he and Libya's PM agreed that Libya would buy the air defence system (Jernas) from the UK (MBDA). One year on, MBDA are now back in Tripoli (since 8 June) aiming to agree and sign the contract now – worth £400m, and up to 2,000 jobs in the UK.

"Linked (by Libya) is the issue of the four bilateral justice agreements about which TB signed an MoU [memorandum of understanding] with [Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, the Libyan prime minister at the time] on 29 May. The MoU says they will be negotiated within the year: they have been. They are all ready for signature in London as soon as Libya fulfils its promise on Jernas."

A spokesman for Blair said that it was the Libyans who were trying to link the prisoner transfer agreement to the arms deal and that the email confirmed this. The spokesman also said it was made clear to Gaddafi that any decision about the release of Megrahi was a matter for the Scottish government, not the UK government.

The Foreign Office said it was not appropriate to comment on the papers of a previous administration and pointed to the review published by Sir Gus O'Donnell, the then cabinet secretary, in February 2011 covering matters relating to the release of Megrahi. That concluded that the UK government did all it could to facilitate the release of Megrahi, whilst at the same time avoiding overtly pressurising the Scottish government, which had the final say.

Exclusive: Megrahi says his Lockerbie role exaggerated

Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi speaks during an exclusive interview with Reuters TV at his home in Tripoli, October 3, 2011.

Πηγή: Reuters
By Mahmoud al-Ghirbani

Oct 3 2011

(Reuters) - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, said his role in the attack had been exaggerated and the truth about what really happened would emerge soon.

Al-Megrahi, released from a Scottish prison two years ago because he was suffering from terminal cancer, spoke to Reuters from a bed at his home in Tripoli. Looking frail and his breathing labored, he said he had only a few months, at most, left to live.

"The facts (about the Lockerbie bombing) will become clear one day and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced," he told Reuters Television over the pinging of medical monitors around his bed.

"The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months."

Al-Megrahi was found guilty of bombing Pan Am flight 103 while it was en route from London to New York on December 21, 1988. All 259 people aboard the plane were killed and 11 others on the ground in Lockerbie also died from falling wreckage.

Al-Megrahi, who had served as an intelligence agent during the rule of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, denied any role in suspected human rights abuses under Gaddafi's administration.

"All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans," he said." I didn't harm anyone. I've never harmed anyone in my life."

He called the trial that led to his conviction a farce. The proceedings were held in a Dutch court under Scottish jurisdiction.

"Camp Zeist Court is the smallest place on earth that contains the largest number of liars. I suffered from the liars at Camp Zeist Court more than you can imagine," he said.

UNSHAVEN

Al-Megrahi lay propped at a slight angle in a hospital-style bed. An oxygen tank stood nearby, but he did not use an oxygen mask during the interview. Members of his family were in the room with him.

Unshaven, he wore a checked shirt and had a white headdress wrapped loosely around his head.

Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) said last week it would work with the Scottish government over the possible involvement of others in the 1988 bombing, an attack the country's new rulers are eager to distance themselves from.

The NTC had previously called the case closed and said any probe would not involve Megrahi, who had been serving a life sentence in Scotland prior to his release. NTC head Mustafa Abdel Jalil has previously claimed to have evidence of Gaddafi's involvement in the bombing.

A second defendant, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was cleared of murder charges in the proceedings.

In his interview, al-Megrahi said that Jim Swire, the father of one of the victims of the bombing who has disputed the court's findings, maintained contact with him.

"The day before yesterday, Dr. Swire sent me an email to tell me that there is a new medicine. He is trying to help me. He told me how to get this medicine."

He said he had little knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Gaddafi's overthrow and that the armed groups which toppled Gaddafi had invaded his home and mistreated him.

"I don't know anything about February 17th...that's not a question for a sick person," he said, using the term by which many Libyans describe the anti-Gaddafi rebellion. "I hear airplanes overhead every day," he said, referring to NATO planes which have bombed sites in Libya.

"My house has been violated. They smashed the main door and stole my cars."

He said he was being denied medical treatment which he said was stipulated in the deal that saw him returned from Scotland to Libya.

"I was treated badly when I came back. During the latest incidents, especially in the last month, I have a shortage of all my medicines. My doctor tells me to look for medicine like anyone else despite the agreement between us and Britain," he said. "I have four pills left (of one of the medications)."

"I want to die in my house, among my family. I hope to God that I will see my country united, with no fighting or war. I hope the bloodshed will stop in Libya. I wish all the best for my country."

Lockerbie resident Sarah Lawson, 87, who still lives in Sherwood Crescent where debris from the plane demolished houses and killed 11 residents, questioned whether the truth about the bombing would ever emerge.

"I don't think he did it...somebody else did it. Maybe he had a job to do and he had to do it otherwise it would've cost him his life," she told Reuters by telephone after the interview with Megrahi.

Megrahi's release was conditional on his agreement to make himself available to talk by telephone or video link with officials from the criminal justice department of East Renfrewshire, an area of Scotland where Megrahi's family lived while he was imprisoned.

"Our criminal justice service monitor Mr Megrahi based on the license that was issued at the time of his release," a spokesman for East Renfrewshire council said.

"We continue to monitor him regularly and he has not breached any of the conditions imposed on him as part of that license," he said.

The British Foreign Office and Scottish government had no immediate comment.

Editor's Note: See also 'Al-Megrahi: The dying breath of a moribund justice?'

Al-Megrahi: The dying breath of a moribund justice?

Al- Megrahi former head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines and former director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli was convicted of 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government on 20 August 2009 following doctors reporting on 10 August 2009 that he had terminal prostate cancer and was expected to have around three months to live.

The trial

During the trial the UN appointed observer and distinguished Austrian philosopher Koechler dinounced the procedure saying that "there seemed to be considerable political influence on the judges and the verdict." Koechler queried the active involvement of senior US Justice Department officials as part of the Scotch prosecution team "in a supervisory role". 

The case was based (a) on the presumption that the bomb timer on the PanAm plane was from a batch sold by a Swiss firm to Libya; (b) that fragments of clothing retrieved from the crash site and identified as having been in the suitcase that contained the bomb had been bought by the accused Megrahi from a shop in Malta; and (c) that a "secret witness," Abdulmajid Gialka, a former colleague of the accused pair in the Libyan Airlines office in Malta, would testify that he had observed them either constructing the bomb or at least seen them loading it onto the plane in Frankfurt. 

Ulrich Lumpert, the Mebo AG engineer who testified to the validity of the first key piece of evidence, namely the bomb timer, lastly admitted in an affidavit to lying in court and stealing the object from his employer after the attack whereupon it was planted. By the time of the trial, Gialka had been living under witness protection in the US. He had received $320,000 from his American hosts and, in the event of conviction of the accused, stood to collect up to $2 million in reward money. He had CIA connections, so the defense lawyers learned, before 1988. 

Tony Gauci, the owner of the shop in Malta from where Megrahi had allegedly bought the clothes not only failed to recognize him in 19 separate statements to the police prior to the trial, but later in Megrahi's second appeal and trial's review (Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission) by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was proved that he could not be at this shop on the alleged Christmas time. Megrahi prior to his release had dropped his second appeal raising questions about pressures he had come under. 

Upon his release suspicions were raised about alleged secret negotiations between the oil giant BP and the British government while others pointed to the pressure of a Libyan investment company, the Dalia Advisory Limited, supposed to be a front company of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) threatening to withdraw her huge investments if Megrahi died in jail. 

The aftermath

Recently, Jalil the chairman of the Transitional National Council (TNC) the Libyan rebel's government during the first days of the rebellion pointed his finger to Gaddafi claiming that he hold evidence that he was the brains behind the bombing which didn't disclose till now, apparently in a gesture to the West powers for support.

After many false rumors by the media claiming that Megrahi was not ill at all but alive and Kicking, finally he was found on his death bead in Tripoli. On Monday, it was discovered a private letter that he wrote  while serving his life sentence in the U.K back in 1988 to the Libya's intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi maintaining his innocence saying: "I am an innocent man".

His son, Khaled al-Megrahi, told CNN: “We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice. There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don’t have any phone line to call anybody. We just sit next to him … he has stopped eating and sometimes he goes into coma.”

Mohammed al-Alagi, the National Transitional Council’s justice minister, dismissed suggestions that he may be extradited saying:

“We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West,” he said. “Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again ... We do not hand over Libyan citizens.”

Perhaps Megrahi's death will be very convenient as in a new trial he could probably be found to be innocent...

Gordon Duff: Libya And The CIA, The Unseen Partnership

"Our president, the leader of the free world, said, 'A what? That's hard! A no fly zone is r-r-r-really hard!' " Giuliani said to laughter. (AP)

Πηγή: Veterans Today


LIBYA’S STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

GWENYTH TODD (Clinton Advisor on Libya and the Middle East): “At that meeting (State Department), one of the agenda items that came up was how we could silence the (Lockerbie) victims’ families by possibly discrediting them – by saying that perhaps they were greedy and that they just wanted money…. and I walked out in disgust. I was outraged”.

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Today, Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi is fighting to stay in power, subject to renewed UN sanctions and a NATO air assault. Few know his checkered history and the decades of “cooperation” between Libya and the covert operations of the United States, Britain and Israel, assassinations, arms dealing and, most of all, drugs.

From Monster Makeover (complete transcript below):


GWENYTH TODD: “According to Israeli lobbyists to whom I spoke, Israel felt no threat from Libya’s nuclear programme in the late 90s and beyond. And if it had been a serious concern, Israel would have made it very clear that we needed to keep the sanctions on”.

Americans are flabbergasted, and they should be, at the strange bedfellows the Libyan crisis has uncovered, a Washington divided, not by politics but something baser exposed, signs of past sins and a flood of Gaddafi cash meant to mold public opinion now as it had for decades.