Scotland interviews former Libyan foreign minister

April 9, 2011 - 0:0

Scottish prosecutors and police have interviewed Moussa Koussa, the former Libyan foreign minister who last week defected to Britain, in connection with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, a Crown Office spokeswoman said.

Last week, U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Koussa, won't be offered immunity from British and international justice.
Officers of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, supported by the Crown prosecution service, Thursday met Koussa in relation to the ongoing investigation into the Lockerbie bombing, a spokeswoman said in a statement.
The spokeswoman declined to comment further.
Scottish prosecutors have kept the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing open since former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Baset al-Megrahi became the only person convicted of the bombing of a Pan Am airliner as it flew over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
Koussa has at times been alleged to have had a role in the bombing. The regime of Col. Moammar Gaddafi always argued it had nothing to do with the attack, which killed 270 people, and that al-Megrahi was innocent. Koussa also played a role in negotiating the release of al-Megrahi on Aug. 20, 2009.
The interview could shed more light on the orchestration of the Lockerbie bombing—something that many family members of Pan Am Flight 103's victims have long desired. Victims groups in both the UK and the U.S. have called for authorities to further investigate the incident.
Since the Scottish government authorized the release of the terminally-ill Megrahi in August 2009, the affair has been the subject of prolonged controversy, with hearings about the release conducted in the U. Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the U.S. Congress.
Though Scotland released Megrahi on the grounds that he had roughly three months to live, he remains alive more than a year and seven months after the release—calling into question the Scottish prison health service's three-month prognosis, which ultimately set him free.
Koussa, thought to be in his late 50s, was Col. Gaddafi's spy chief for approximately two decades, a period of time when Libya was suspected to be behind a string of terrorist attacks in Europe that killed Libyan dissidents and foreigners.
(Source: Wall street Journal)