Libya to co-operate in Lockerbie case
2011-09-28 23:08
Tripoli - Libya's new authorities are "ready to co-operate" if they are asked to provide people for questioning over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, the interim justice minister said on Wednesday.
"We are ready to co-operate if more people were asked to be investigated in the Lockerbie case," the National Transitional Council's justice minister, Mohammed al-Alagi, told a news conference in Tripoli.
Prosecutors in Scotland said on Monday that they have formally asked the NTC to help them with the probe into the attack on Pan Am flight 103 in which 270 people died.
The Crown Office, Scotland's public prosecution service, said in particular that it wants the NTC to make evidence and witnesses available for their investigation.
The only person convicted of the bombing, Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, was released on compassionate grounds on August 20 2009 after doctors said he had only three months to live. He is still alive.
A second Libyan man, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, also stood trial at a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands with Megrahi, but was acquitted in 2001.
The Pan Am jumbo jet exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21 1988, killing 259 people on the plane, mainly Americans, and 11 on the ground.
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said in August he would not seek Megrahi's extradition from the NTC after reports said he was drifting in and out of consciousness.