The son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said the Libyan government had only claimed responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing in order to normalize ties with the West and get international sanctions lifted.
“Yes, we wrote a letter to the [UN] Security Council saying we are responsible for the acts of our employees ... but it doesn’t mean that we did it in fact,” Saif al-Islam Qaddafi said in an interview to be broadcast today by the BBC.
“I admit that we played with words — we had to. What can you do? Without writing that letter we would not be able to get rid of sanctions,” said Saif al-Islam, who took a central role in the talks to end Libya’s isolation.
PHOTO: AFP
Libya and the US recently signed a deal to compensate victims of attacks initiated by both sides during the 1980s, paving the way for the full normalization of relations.
The deal covers US victims of the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and of a Berlin disco in 1986. Under the arrangement, Libya will place money into a fund to compensate victims and their families.
Libya is to provide about US$800 million for compensation into the fund to settle existing lawsuits and be immune from any further legal action.
Talking to an interviewer for the program The Conspiracy Files: Lockerbie, Saif al-Islam criticized the Lockerbie air crash victims’ families as “greedy” and “materialistic.”
“The negotiation with them, it was very terrible and very materialistic and was very greedy. They were asking for money and more money and more money and more money,” the BBC Web site quoted him as saying.
“I think they were very greedy and I think they were trading with the blood of their sons and daughters,” said Saif al-Islam, who carries out political and diplomatic roles on behalf of his father.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had praised the US Congress for passing legislation that allows Libya to settle all pending lawsuits by victims of terrorism, will visit Libya next week, the first visit of its kind since 1953.
US-Libyan relations were restored in early 2004 after more than two decades of frosty relations after Tripoli agreed to turn over its weapons of mass destruction programs.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS