Members of the Libyan House of Representatives (HoR) Committee for Justice and National Reconciliation discussed developments in the extradition of the Libyan citizen Abu Ajila Masoud Al-Marimi to the United States (US). They held these discussions at the HoR’s office in Benghazi.
The Libya’s Parliamentarian Committee of Justice and National Reconciliation discussed the developments in the extradition operation for a Libyan suspect in Lockerbie bombing to the US.
The official Spokesperson for the HoR, Abdullah Blehaig, stated that the the Libyan Members of Parliament (MPs) discussed the measures taken in this regard by all relevant institutions and judicial authorities to defend the “kidnapped” citizen Abu Ajila Masoud. The meeting was held at the Parliament headquarters in Benghazi.
Earlier this month, the Committee called on Attorney General Al-Siddiq Al-Sour to open an investigation into the kidnapping and the extradition of Masoud. It urged for referring all those involved in this incident to the Libyan judiciary.
Masoud was extradited by the Libyan government last month. He was a former Libyan intelligence officer, who allegedly made the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
Days after his “kidnapping from his bed in Libya,” Masoud appeared in a US courtroom. However, the US said on December 21st, that the extradition of Abu Ajila “was legal and carried out in cooperation with the Libyan authorities”. The Embassy also claims that the US will not renege on the financial agreement reached in 2008. Washington promised that the civil parties to the criminal trial which will take place in the US will not be able to claim more money from Libya.
Meanwhile, the Libyan Parliament denounced the step. The Libyan Attorney General, Al-Siddiq Al-Sour, announced that his office launched an investigating into the incident.
A disclosed document revealed that the former South African leader, Nelson Mandela, told the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that it was “wrong to hold Libya legally responsible for the Lockerbie bombing,” The Guardian reported.
At a meeting in Downing Street in April 2001, Mandela said holding Libya legally responsible for the Lockerbie bombing “is against public international law.”
The then-British government believed Mandela attempted to play mediator between it and Libyan leader, Moammar Gaddafi over the question of compensation after the Lockerbie bombing was “unlikely to be helpful.”
According to a record of the meeting by Blair’s foreign policy adviser, John Sawers, later Head of MI6, Blair argued that the United Kingdom (UK) was not “insisting Gaddafi had ordered the Lockerbie bombing, and that the Libyan state may not be directly responsible.”
The record added that, “Blair said they were still liable for Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi’s actions, and the Lockerbie trial had found that he had been a member of the Libyan intelligence service when he carried out the bombing.”
