OAU asks UN to lift sanctions against Libya
ADDIS ABABA: The UN Security Council should lift
sanctions against Libya now that a former Libyan
intelligence agent has been tried and convicted of planting a
bomb on an American airliner, killing 270 people, the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU) said yesterday.
OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim said the
53-nation organisation, to which Libya belongs, had
condemned the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight
103 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, and had called
for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
“Now that the judgment has been delivered, the
secretary-general reiterates the position of the OAU that
the UN Security Council should take appropriate measures
to immediately and permanently lift the sanctions,” an OAU
statement said.
Salim said he hoped the lifting of the sanctions would
improve relations between Libya and the international
community.
On Wednesday, a Scottish court sentenced Abdel Ali Al
Megrahi to life imprisonment, with no possibility of review
for 20 years, for planting the device that blew up the flight.
Al Megrahi has 14 days to appeal.
The split verdict, which specified that Al Megrahi, a Libyan
intelligence agent, carried out the attack in “furtherance of
the purposes” of his country’s intelligence service, revived
accusations in the West that the Libyan government was
behind the attack. Libyan authorities long have denied
government involvement.
The court said it found no conclusive evidence that
codefendant Lamen Khalifa Fhimah knowingly helped Al
Megrahi, even though he supplied the transfer tags that put
the bag on the New York-bound airliner.
Fhimah flew home the day after he was acquitted |
