Last Wednesday, Moussa Koussa (left) defected to the United Kingdom. Koussa was the foreign minister in the government of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland.
In an article published online by The Scotsman reports that “victims of the Lockerbie bombing have made an emotional appeal for Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s former foreign minister to be questioned over the atrocity.”
A family member of one of the victims quoted in the piece believes that, “He [Koussa] was clearly running things. He reckons that, “If Libya was involved in Lockerbie, he can tell us how they carried out the atrocity and why.”
Another relative also sees promise in the interrogation of the former Libyan official:
Pamela Dix, whose 35-year-old brother Peter was killed in the bombing, said she was “very enthusiastic” for Koussa to be questioned. He may have material information and evidence and I would wish to see every opportunity used to see if that is the case.
The cries of the kin of those killed over Lockerbie are not falling on deaf ears. The Scotsman reports that “both Dumfries and Galloway Police and the Crown Office in Scotland asked for permission from the Foreign Office to interview Koussa, who last night was being kept in a safe house by MI6.”
For his part, Prime Minister David Cameron insisted no promises were made to Koussa by the British government to encourage his defection. Furthermore, Cameron assures Britons that Koussa will not be shielded from prosecution for any part he may have played in the attack that was carried out on December 21, 1988.
It is unclear from reports whether or not Scottish officials have been granted access to the valuable defector. Regardless, many in Scotland are hopeful that Koussa will be forthcoming with vital testimony that would clear up the events surrounding the bombing and the precise role played in it by the Gaddafi regime.
The Scotsman revealed in the story that Koussa arrived in the U.K. in “a private Swiss jet from Tunisia at Farnborough airport in Hampshire.”
Apparently, there’s quite a list of passengers waiting on stand-by in Tunisia to join Koussa in the protective custody of the secret services of the United Kingdom.
Unconfirmed testimony obtained by The Scotsman indicates that six more Libyan officials are laid over in Tunisia waiting to defect.
Only one man has been convicted of participating in the bombing that killed 270 people, suspect Libyan secret agent Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi. Megrahi’s boss at the time was Moussa Koussa himself, thus increasing the belief that if anyone can inculpate Gaddafi in the tragedy it is Koussa.
As for Megrahi, former U.K. Prime Minster Gordon Brown granted him “compassionate release” from the Scottish prison where he was serving a life sentence for his role in the bombing. It has been two years since Megrahi was released by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.
Koussa’s résumé is a compelling read. He served as head of the Libyan Intelligence Agency from 1994 to 2009. Prior to that he worked at as a senior intelligence agent at the time of the attack on Pan Am Flight 103.
Koussa worked as a security specialist for Libyan embassies in Europe before being appointed as Libya’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1980. He was expelled from the United Kingdom in 1980, after informing a newspaper that his government intended to eliminate two political opponents of the Libyan government who were then living in the U.K.
Koussa had been head of Col Gaddafi’s feared intelligence agency since 1994 and was a senior intelligence agent at the time of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
The attack on the Pan Am jet apparently was not Koussa’s only experience blowing commercial airliners out of the air. According to The Scotsman, he is suspected of having participated in the bombing of a passenger plane over Niger in 1989, just one year after the events in Lockerbie.
Given the maelstrom swirling in Libya, it is little wonder that Koussa would seek asylum in the peaceful climate of Britain. Colonel Gadaffi himself might be a little surprised by his minister’s change of heart, however, as Libyan government spokesmen reported that Koussa was in Tunisia as part of a diplomatic mission.
