UN Envoy Heads For Libya For Lockerbie Handover
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The chief U.N. legal counsel left for Europe Friday on his way to Libya for the handover of two suspects accused of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that cost 270 lives, U.N. sources said.
Hans Corell, in charge of the surrender of the two men, would board a special aircraft, possibly in Italy, to bring the two suspects from Libya to the Netherlands where they were to stand trial before a Scottish court. Some 100 Scottish policeman are in the Netherlands awaiting their arrival.
The handover was expected before Tuesday, the date Libya had pledged to complete the surrender, after months of nail-biting indirect negotiations with the United States and Britain handled by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
While Corell was operating in secrecy, diplomatic sources said Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi wanted to have as many witnesses on hand as possible for the handover and had invited Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini, dignitaries from Namibia and U.S. Congressman Earl Hilliard, an Alabama Democrat, to come to Tripoli.
Also invited was Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, who, along with South African President Nelson Mandela, was instrumental in getting Libya to accept the deal.
U.S. and U.N. officials could not immediately confirm reports that Gaddafi wanted several planes to land in the Libya capital this weekend, despite a U.N. flight ban in existence until Annan has certified that the two suspects have landed in the Netherlands.
But a senior U.N. diplomat said ''We have heard talk of invitations and other niggling. But the main point is to get it the handover done and then everyone can go and have a party.''
U.S. and British officials say they have evidence that the two suspects -- Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah -- planted a bomb inside a suitcase that exploded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988, over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
A total of 270 people were killed in the air and on the ground, most of them Americans, including 35 Syracuse University students coming home for Christmas from their studies in London.
The plane Corell has organized for the two suspects, believed to be intelligence agents, was expected to include their lawyers, a doctor, nurses and some relatives.
After reaching Libya, possibly from Italy where the United Nations once readied a plane for this purpose, Corell would fly with the two men directly to the Netherlands where Dutch police would take them into custody.
They would then be ''extradited'' to Scottish police, on standby in the Netherlands. The two are to go on trial before a Scottish Court, sitting at Camp Zeist, a former military base, near Utrecht.
After a decade of fruitless actions, London and Washington last August dropped their insistence on a trial in either of their countries and agreed to one in the Netherlands before a Scottish court in accordance with Libya's oft-stated willingness to accept a trial in a ''neutral'' venue.
Once the men are in the Netherlands, Annan is to write a letter to the Security Council that would automatically suspend sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992 and tightened in 1993.
The council, headed by France this month, is expected to meet when he does so to acknowledge the letter, although its 15 members need not vote on suspending the embargoes.
They include bans on air travel, weapons and certain types of oil-related equipment. In addition, Libya's financial assets abroad were frozen but this excluded monies derived from oil sales after December 1, 1993.
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