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Libya may refuse to extradite new suspects in Lockerbie bombing
By Colin Freeman
Libyan officials have hinted that they would be reluctant to allow two newly identified suspects in the Lockerbie bombing to be extradited to Scotland, saying they would prefer any trial to take place in Libya.
Jamal Zubia, a spokesman for the government in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, told the Telegraph on Wednesday that “we would prefer them to be tried on Libyan soil”.
But he said that the Libyan attorney general was happy to consider a request issued by Scottish prosecutors last week for detectives to come to Libya to interview the suspects.
The move follows a statement last Thursday by Scottish and US investigators that they had identified two new Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which led to the deaths of 270 people when it was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
Aerial view over Lockerbie the morning after the crash
An aerial view of the scene of the Lockerbie disaster the day after the bombing Photo: BRYN COLTON
The two new Libyan suspects are understood to be Abdullah al-Senussi, Colonel Gaddafi’s former spy chief, and Abu Agila Mas’ud, an alleged bomb-making expert.
Both are believed to be in jail in Tripoli, with Senussi accused of orchestrating the killings of protesters during the Libya’s 2011 revolution, and Mas’ud accused of terrorism offences.
Mr Zubia said that any final decision on whether to allow the Scottish and American police access to the suspects would have to be made by the Libyan attorney general’s office, and pointed out that existing Libyan law forbade the extradition of suspects to foreign soil.
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who was jailed for life in Scotland for the bombing, was handed over on the express orders of Col Gaddafi as part of his attempts to build rapprochement with the outside world.
Sending investigators to Libya may be complicated. Most diplomats and foreign staff left the capital last year and closed their embassies as the result of fighting between two rival factions, one of which operates out of Tripoli, the other from the western city of Tobruk.
On Tuesday, both opposing factions rejected the terms of a UN-brokered peace plan.
A trial conducted in Libya could also cause logistical and legal complications from the point of view of foreign investigators, who would be under pressure to bring any fresh prosecution under Western-style judicial procedures.
