Translated material
Lucky Gaddafi
Leonid Velekhov
The investigation into an act of air terrorism led to the political rehabilitation of the “mad dog of the Middle East”
The investigation into an act of air terrorism led to the political rehabilitation of the “mad dog of the Middle East”
(Photo: AP )
They waited for more than 11 years for the trial, which began last Wednesday, May 3, in Holland, on the territory of the former US Air Force base Kamp van Zeist, located 65 km from Amsterdam.
On December 21, 1988, a Pan American Boeing 747, flying from London to New York, exploded while flying over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. This happened 38 minutes after it took off from London Heathrow Airport. All 259 people on board (189 of them US citizens) were killed. Eleven more Lockerbie residents were killed by debris from the Boeing that crashed into the town.
Based on the nature of the plane crash, investigators quickly determined that they were dealing with a terrorist attack. Finding out its reasons, customers and performers took, however, much more time. More than 15 thousand people in more than thirty countries were interrogated in the case, and 180 thousand material evidence was collected. About four million pieces of the ill-fated plane have been studied. It was the longest investigation in the history of British forensics - it lasted more than three years.
During almost the entire investigation, two versions competed equally. According to one of them, the terrorist attack was planned in the “citadel of world terrorism,” Libya, with the personal participation of the “mad dog of the Middle East,” as US President Reagan affectionately called him, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The destruction of the Boeing, according to this version, was revenge on the United States for the massive bombing of the Libyan capital Tripoli and the seaport of Benghazi in 1986 (which, in turn, became an act of retaliation against the United States for the bombing of a disco in West Berlin organized by Libyan intelligence services in April 1986 ). During the bombing of Tripoli, Gaddafi's adopted daughter was killed among hundreds of civilians.
According to another version, the terrorist attack was organized by Iranian intelligence services and carried out by Palestinian terrorists in retaliation for the death of an Iranian passenger airliner, which was flying to Mecca in July 1988 and was mistakenly shot down by a missile fired from a US warship.
As a result, the investigation leaned towards the Libyan version, which caused at that time - in 1991 - many puzzling questions and comments on the topic that the Libyan “trace” was “ordered” by the United States. The comments, however, did not change the investigators' conclusions. They came to the unanimous conclusion that the terrorist attack was the work of Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Baset al-Migrahi and al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who worked under the “roof” of the representative office of the Libyan national airline in Malta. The USA and Great Britain demanded their extradition from Gaddafi. Gaddafi categorically refused to do this, saying that Libya “will sort it out on its own.” And, I must say, he had reason for this. According to international standards - in particular, the 1971 Montreal Convention on the Safety of Air Transport - Libya had the right to try terrorist suspects itself and not extradite them to other countries.
But strength is strength. Under pressure from the United States and Great Britain, the UN Security Council introduced sanctions in 1992 and further tightened them in 1993, effectively cutting off Libya from the rest of the world. Air traffic with the country was interrupted, its holdings in world banks were frozen, and the export of oil and gas, which provides more than 95 percent of foreign exchange earnings to the Libyan budget, was reduced to a minimum. The only condition for lifting sanctions was the extradition of terrorist suspects.
In 1994, the Libyan authorities agreed to extradite them, however, putting forward their own conditions - the trial must take place in a “neutral” (not the US or UK) country under the jurisdiction of a “mixed” international tribunal. However, this option did not satisfy the United States and the British. It took another four years to arrive at a mutually acceptable formula: the country is neutral, but the court is Scottish. The latter circumstance, although it was an initiative of the Americans, guaranteed the defendants life in the event of a guilty verdict: in the criminal legislation of Scotland there is no death penalty, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
As we see, both sides eventually made concessions, not only Tripoli. The initially unshakable United States found itself under intense pressure from Western European countries, primarily Italy and France, which were extremely interested in Libyan oil. In July 1998, African countries “revolted” and declared that they did not intend to maintain the burdensome anti-Libyan embargo exclusively for them any longer. The Arab League also threatened the same.
Gaddafi spent more than a year on delays and subterfuge until finally, on April 5 last year, the Libyan suspects were handed over to international justice. "Finished" Libyan Colonel Nelson Mandela. He considered it possible to “surrender” to such a “parliamentarian.”
The trial that began last week, which, of course, has already been dubbed the “trial of the century,” will last at least a year. 1,172 people are expected to hear witnesses alone. What, however, can one expect from the “trial of the century”, besides fulfilling the literal function of any criminal process - establishing the guilt (or innocence) of the immediate accused? Theoretically, of course, it is possible that a “bomb” will explode at the trial - the accused will give testimony revealing the involvement of the top Libyan leadership in the terrorist attack. But this is an absolutely fantastic prospect. If it were even remotely real, Gaddafi would never have handed over his citizens to an international tribunal.
If we exclude such a turn of events, then an exactly opposite turn suggests itself. The “process of the century” completes the political rehabilitation of Gaddafi, begun by his agreement to extradite the suspects and continued by the lifting of UN sanctions on Libya (this happened immediately after the extradition, in April last year). A long-term outcast returns to the international stage as a full-fledged and full-fledged state leader.
The stubbornness with which Gaddafi rejected the demand for the extradition of terrorist suspects for 8 years, of course, cost him dearly. According to his own calculations, $29 billion is exactly how much Libya, as he claims, has lost due to international sanctions. But Gaddafi's agreement to hand over the terrorists seems to bring him dividends that far exceed his previous losses. After the sanctions were lifted, entrepreneurs from Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and South Korea, who had been waiting for this moment for a long time, poured into the country. Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini flew to Libya the very next day after the terrorist attack suspects were handed over to the international court. He arrived to negotiate the participation of Italian oil companies in modernizing the dilapidated Libyan oil industry: high-quality and easily accessible local royalty oil attracts many. Already last fall, Libya concluded the largest contract, worth $9 billion, with the European aviation consortium Airbus Industry, which will restore the national aircraft fleet and infrastructure that had fallen into complete disrepair during the blockade.
Gaddafi, through his associates, is hinting to numerous investors that he is about to completely “open” the economy to foreign capital in the manner of his neighbors - Egypt and Tunisia. “The Mad Dog of the Middle East” turned into a fabulous Middle Eastern caliph in the blink of an eye.
It took so long to extract a concession from Gaddafi that they did not notice how fetishized it was, it seems. And paradoxically, in response to the extradition of two of his employees, the Libyan leader received exemption not only from those sanctions that were imposed on the country as punishment for the death of the Boeing. The United States entered into negotiations with Tripoli last July, having broken off all relations with Gaddafi long before the tragedy in the skies over Lockerbie - back in 1981. London immediately rushed to restore diplomatic relations with Libya, which had also been severed before Lockerbie, in 1984. Now Gaddafi is completely “persona grata”.
Truly, as Napoleon said, luck accompanies dictators until the very last moment. It's just that when she turns away from them, they cease to be dictators.
Everything, right down to the road signs, is ready for the Scottish court hearing in Holland, on the territory of a former US Navy base. (Photo: EPA )