Defector 'can tell the West how and why' on Lockerbie

Published on Thursday 31 March 2011 18:09

RELATIVES of some of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing have made an emotional appeal for Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's former foreign minister to be questioned over the atrocity.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was on Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December, 1988, when it was blown out of the air, said Moussa Koussa, who defected to the UK on Wednesday, would know the truth about what happened.

"He was clearly running things," said Dr Swire. "If Libya was involved in Lockerbie, he can tell us how they carried out the atrocity and why."

Pamela Dix, whose 35-year-old brother Peter was killed in the bombing, said she was "very enthusiastic" for Koussa to be questioned. "He may have material information and evidence and I would wish to see every opportunity used to see if that is the case."

Their comments came as both Dumfries and Galloway Police and the Crown Office in Scotland asked for permission from the Foreign Office to interview Koussa, who last night was being kept in a safe house by MI6.

Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that while Koussa had defected no deal had been done with him and he would not be protected from criminal prosecution for crimes in Britain or international crimes.

But it was still unclear whether Koussa would be handed over to the Scottish authorities as Mr Cameron appealed to other members of the regime to follow Koussa's example and "abandon Gaddafi's crumbling and rotten regime".

There were unconfirmed reports last night that six more ministers had arrived in Tunisia with the intention of defecting, despite military defeats for the rebels.

In another day of action, Col Gaddafi's troops reportedly pushed the rebel army out of the key oil town of Ajbabaya in the east, while Brega was said to be split in two by the fighting. In the west, the shells fired by Col Gaddafi's forces reportedly killed 20 civilians in the town of Misrata, currently held by the rebels. Meanwhile, the Vatican's official in Tripoli last night asked for an inquiry into whether 38 civilians were killed in Tripoli by allied bombing.

But the focus for many Scottish observers was whether the arrival of Koussa in a private Swiss jet from Tunisia at Farnborough airport in Hampshire would shed light on the Lockerbie bombing.

So far only the former Libyan agent Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, who worked under Koussa, has been convicted over the worst atrocity in modern British history.

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Megrahi yesterday celebrated his second birthday since being released by SNP justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.

Scottish Liberal Democrat Justice spokesman Robert Brown said: "There were many loose ends left when the final appeal process was aborted when Mr Al-Megrahi was released.

"The Scottish appeal court never had the chance to hear and test the issues raised by the Scottish criminal cases review commission, as a result of Kenny MacAskill's ill-fated intervention. The opportunity to interview such a senior Libyan official must be pursued with vigour. It has always been known that Megrahi did not act alone."

Mr Cameron said the decision of one of the most senior members of the Tripoli government to flee Libya told "a compelling story of the desperation and fear right at the top of the crumbling and rotten Gaddafi regime".

Koussa had been head of Col Gaddafi's feared intelligence agency since 1994 and was a senior intelligence agent at the time of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Koussa has also been linked to assinations, political murders in Libya and blowing up of a passenger plane over Niger in 1989. In 1979 he was expelled from the UK for threatening Libyan exiles.

Yesterday Tory MP Robert Halfon, whose grandparents fled Libya when Col Gaddafi took power in a 1969 coup, said Koussa "should be put in front of a British or international court for war crimes, if it is true that he was behind the Lockerbie bombing".

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Koussa was "voluntarily talking" to British officials.

He revealed he had spoken several times to Koussa by phone during the ongoing crisis, most recently last Friday. But he said that the question of defection was not discussed because of the likelihood that Col Gaddafi's agents were listening in to calls. Mr Hague said he had gathered "between the lines" of their conversations that Koussa was "distressed" by what was happening in Libya.

While the defection was a huge coup for Mr Cameron and British intelligence services, the Gaddafi regime tried to play it down claiming that the former foreign minister was simply "old and tired."

Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Koussa was given permission to go to Tunisia for health treatment, but was surprised to hear he had flown to Britain.

"This is not a happy piece of news, but people are saying, 'So what?' If someone wants to step down that's his decision," said Mr Ibrahim.

"He is tired and exhausted. He is an old man. His heart and body cannot take the pressure."