Foreign minister Kusa tracked down to luxury Qatar resort

Libya’s former foreign minister has been traced to a luxury resort in Qatar, according to reports.

Musa Kusa is believed to have been an intelligence officer at the time of the 1988 Lockerbie bomb atrocity in which 270 people were killed.

He made a high-profile defection to Britain in March and was interviewed by police and Scottish prosecutors investigating the bombing.

He left the country following an EU decision to lift sanctions against him, meaning he no longer faces travel restrictions or an asset freeze. Kusa was traced by the BBC’s Panorama programme, which is investigating allegations that he tortured political prisoners in Libya. He declined to comment on the claims.

Kusa was head of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s intelligence agency from 1994 and a senior intelligence agent when PanAm flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie.

There have also been calls for Kusa to be quizzed in relation to the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot dead during a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.

The Foreign Office said Kusa was a “private individual” who had been interviewed voluntarily.

Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the bombing, said that if anyone could offer any insight into the “huge questions still unanswered” on Libya’s role in Lockerbie, it would be Kusa.

He said: “When I met Musa Kusa in Libya in 1991, it was clear to me he was the guy who was central to the Gaddafi administration.

“He could tell us just as much as Gaddafi about Lockerbie as he was at the core of the regime.

“He was a very, very key figure and we need answers as to why he was allowed to fly back, and any probing over his crimes should be done by the International Criminal Court.”