Gaddafi ordered Lockerbie bombing, says ex-minister
By DPA, IANSWednesday, February 23, 2011
STOCKHOLM - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi allegedly ordered the 1998 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, the North African country’s ex-justice minister is quoted as saying by a Swedish newspaper.
Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who resigned Monday over Gaddafi’s violent crackdown on protesters, said he had “proof that Gaddafi gave the order” of the bombing that claimed 270 lives, according to an extract from an interview published Wednesday on the online site of the Expressen daily.
He added that in order to conceal his role, Gaddafi “did all in his power” to secure that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan secret agent who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court in 2001 for the bombing, was brought back to Libya.
The Expressen newspaper said its reporter met Abdel-Jalil at an unnamed location in Libya, but the excerpt did not offer details of Gaddafi’s alleged involvement.
In 2009 al-Megrahi was released on health grounds from a jail in Scotland, but he is still alive despite being given three months to live from cancer at the time.
