Thaindian News

London, Apr.1 (ANI): Relatives of victims of the Lockerbie bombing have demanded that former Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa should be questioned over claims that he masterminded the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight which killed around 270 people.

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 assassinations, 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.

Both Dumfries and Galloway Police and the Crown Office in Scotland have asked the Foreign Office for permission to interview Koussa, who has being kept in a safe house by MI6.

Many Scottish observers have been speculating whether Koussa’s arrival in UK after he defected from Libya would shed light on the Lockerbie bombing.

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

However, it is unclear whether Koussa will be handed over to the Scottish authorities as Cameron has appealed to other members of the Gadaffi regime to follow Koussa’s example and “abandon the crumbling and rotten regime”.

So far only the former Libyan agent Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, who worked under Koussa, has been convicted over the bombing.

Scottish National Party’s justice secretary Kenny MacAskill released Megrahi around two years ago.

Scottish Liberal Democrat Justice spokesman Robert Brown said: “There were many loose ends left when the final appeal process was aborted when 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,” he added.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said Koussa was “voluntarily talking” to British officials and revealed he had had several telephone conversations with Koussa, most recently last Friday, but the question of defection was not discussed because of the likelihood that Gaddafi’s agents were listening in to calls. (ANI)