TRIPOLI: Libya’s interim prime minister on Thursday confirmed and justified the extradition of the man alleged to have made the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988.
Tripoli-based premier Abdelhamid Dbeibah said he had “acted with respect for the sovereignty of Libya” in cooperating “when it comes to crimes committed outside its territory.”
Dbeibah has come under heavy criticism from political opponents and rights activists since the extradition.
Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, 71, who allegedly worked as an intelligence agent for the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, appeared in a US court on Monday to face charges for the terror attack that killed 270 people.
He was charged by the United States two years ago for the Lockerbie bombing.
Dbeibah, in a speech broadcast on national television, said Masud was “responsible for the bomb-making cell” in Qaddafi’s regime, and that “he is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 innocent people.”
Dbeibah added that it was important to “make the difference” in the case between the “responsibility of the Libyan state, and that of the individual,” stressing that as regards national responsibility, “the case has been definitively closed” since 2003.
“I will not allow it to be opened again,” he said.
In 2003, Libya agreed compensation for the victims of the bombing after lengthy talks with British and US officials, leading the UN to lift sanctions later that year.
“I no longer tolerate that Libya and its people pay for the consequences of more than 30 years of terrorist operations, and that Libyans are classified as terrorists because accused persons are in Libya,” added Dbeibah.
Only one person has been convicted over the deadliest-ever terror attack in Britain.
The New York-bound aircraft was blown up 38 minutes after it took off from London, sending the main fuselage plunging to the ground in the town of Lockerbie and spreading debris over a vast area.
The bombing killed all 259 people on the jumbo jet, including 190 Americans, and 11 people on the ground.
Two alleged Libyan intelligence operatives — Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah — were charged with the bombing and tried by a Scottish court in the Netherlands.
Megrahi spent seven years in a Scottish prison after his conviction in 2001 while Fhimah was acquitted.
Megrahi died in Libya in 2012, always maintaining his innocence.
Since Masud’s extradition, Dbeibah and his government have been criticized, and the attorney general said he would open an investigation at the request of his family.
Libya’s Dbeibah defends extradition of alleged Lockerbie bomber
https://arab.news/zeq9e
Libya’s Dbeibah defends extradition of alleged Lockerbie bomber
- Tripoli-based premier Abdelhamid Dbeibah said he had "acted with respect for the sovereignty of Libya"
- Abu Agila Mohammad Masud appeared in a US court on Monday to face charges for the terror attack that killed 270 people
UK slaps sanctions on Sudan RSF paramilitary deputy, other commanders
- The Foreign Office in London said those targeted include RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo
- They are accused of “mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians”
LONDON: The UK Friday imposed sanctions on senior commanders of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) suspected of “heinous violence” in the Darfur hub of El-Fasher, which the paramilitary group captured in October.
The Foreign Office in London said those targeted include RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, whose brother Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo is the group’s leader, as well as three other commanders.
They are accused of “mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians” when the RSF dislodged the Sudanese army from El-Fasher, its last stronghold in the western Darfur region.
They now face UK asset freezes and travel bans.
The government said the RSF’s actions in El-Fasher were “not random” but instead “part of a deliberate strategy to terrorize populations and seize control through fear and violence.”
It added satellite imagery showed evidence of mass graves where victims have been burned and buried, and the sanctions send “a clear message that those who commit atrocities will be held to account.”
The European Union last month also slapped sanctions on Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo.
In a statement unveiling the UK curbs, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the atrocities taking place in Sudan “are so horrific they scar the conscience of the world.”
“The overwhelming evidence of heinous crimes — mass executions, starvation, and the systematic and calculated use of rape as a weapon of war — cannot and will not go unpunished,” she added.
“The UK will not look away, and we will always stand with the people of Sudan.”
Minni Minawi, the army-aligned governor of Darfur, welcomed the UK sanctions “as an important step toward holding accountable those responsible for the crimes and violations witnessed in Sudan in recent times.”
But he added the measures “remain incomplete” unless they also target Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo, “as he is the decision-maker and the direct architect of the violence system.”
London also announced Friday £21 million ($28 million) in additional aid to provide food, clean water, health care, and protection for women and children in areas of Sudan hardest hit by violence.
It said the financial package took UK aid spending in Sudan this year to £146 million.
