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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS