Thaindian News

London, Feb 24 (ANI): Libya’s former Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abdel-Jalil has said Colonel Gaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie attack which resulted in deaths of 270 innocent people.

Abdel-Jalil said he had proof of the Libyan tyrant’s hand in the bombing.

The former minister suggested that Colonel Gaddafi’s complicity in the atrocity is what lay behind his desire to fight for the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing: Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Daily Mail reports.

Abdel-Jalil told a Swedish journalist at The Expressen newspaper: “I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie.”

He did not give details of this evidence, but added: “To hide it, he (Gaddafi) did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland.”

Al-Megrahi was granted a compassionate release from a Scottish prison in August 2009 on the grounds that he was suffering from prostate cancer and would die soon. He is still alive.

Abdel-Jalil stepped down as justice minister in protest at the violence, which has seen hundreds of anti-government demonstrators killed.

Gaddafi has been trying to bring his country out of isolation, announcing in 2003 that he was abandoning his program for weapons of mass destruction and renouncing terrorism.

Gaddafi also accepted Libya’s responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims’ families.

Most of the victims in the Lockerbie bombing were Americans, and al-Megrahi’s release has been criticised by members of the US Congress and the victims’ families. (ANI)