This week Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi was in New York to attend a meeting of the United Nations. Last Friday he took the opportunity to meet with families of the 259 victims who died onboard the ill fated Pan Am Flight 103 when a bomb exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland.
Libya previously admitted responsibility for this bombing and paid billions of dollars to families of the dead passengers. Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was the only person charged with this terrorist act and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Scotland.
But last month, in a controversial move that angered the US Government and the victims’ families, the Scottish Government released Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi on compassionate ground. What triggered the fury of the US administration and American relatives of the victims of the atrocity was the very public homecoming celebration that Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi received at Tripoli airport when he returned home. It subsequently became known that Britain had written to Muammar Gaddafi to request that the return of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi be a low key event.
But Libya chose to give Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi a high profile public hero’s welcome. It also suggested that trade played a part in the release of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi. Although British Prime Minister Gordan Brown denied that the lucrative BP oil explorative contract had anything to do with Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s release, the general public feeling is that it did.
Regarding the meeting last Friday with victims’ families, Muammar Gaddafi said: ”It was a friendly meeting and encounter.”
What did they discuss at the meeting? Muammar Gaddafi said: “I offered my condolences for the families who lost them. They also expressed their condolences for my daughter who was killed for the American raid in 1986.”
Asked to say something about the Lockerbie bombing, Muammar Gaddafi said: “Of course, of course. It is a tragedy. It is a catastrophe.” Then alluding to the death of his adopted daughter who was killed in a US air strike ordered by President Ronald Reagan after Libya was suspected of being behind the bombing of a disco in Berlin in which two US soldiers died, Muammar Gaddafi said: ”No one would support an action like that or would not be touched and moved by such a tragedy. Whether it’s Lockerbie or whether it is the ’86 raid against Libya. We are all families of the victims.”
Think about it. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is now claiming to be among the families of those who perish in terrorist bombings. By saying this, he is in effect calling former US President Ronald Reagan a terrorist for ordering the airstrike on Libya. But he forgot that Libya did formerly acknowledge responsibility for the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. What would that made him to be? A terrorist?
Earlier posts
Lockerbie Bomber – Medical Reports Paid By Libya
Lockerbie Bomber – Prisoner Transfer Considered
Lockerbie Bomber – Web Of Entanglement
Lockerbie Bomber – Oil For Freedom Deal?
A Hero’s Welcome For A Mass Murderer
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