By Ian Black
February 12, 1999
In a last-ditch attempt to get Libya to hand over the two suspects wanted in the Lockerbie airliner bombing, Britain is making the unprecedented offer of allowing United Nations personnel to be permanently stationed in a Scottish jail where the men would serve their sentences if convicted.
The Guardian has learned that Britain is asking Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, to supply monitors to work inside the top-security wing of Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison if the two intelligence officers are found guilty. The proposal, approved by Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, was said last night to have been been received positively in Tripoli, as were assurances that Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah would not be interrogated - ensuring that damage to the regime and its security chiefs could be limited.
"We are encouraged that we are getting to a successful endgame," said a senior British source. "The offer of a UN role seems to have been helpful in giving Gadafy greater confidence that the two will not be interrogated. "We will not let out any sighs of relief until they land in the Netherlands [where any trial would take place], but it is now more of a possibility than ever before."
Under the proposal, the special wing at Barlinnie would have a UN designation and UN staff would be involved in supervising or monitoring the prisoners, though normal security procedures would apply. There is no question of granting extra-territorial status to the cells.
The offer caps six months of frantic secret diplomacy to secure justice for the 270 victims of Pan Am flight 103, brought down over Lockerbie in December 1988 in the worst act of terrorism in contemporary British history. Last August, Britain and the United States dropped their demand for a trial in the US or Scotland, instead offering one under Scottish law at a specially repaired former Nato air base near Utrecht.
News of an apparent breakthrough came after a South African envoy, Jakes Gerwell, travelled to Libya this week after seeing Mr Cook in London on Monday. Professor Gerwell, President Nelson Mandela's chef de cabinet, had visited earlier with the Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
If Libya does not accept this proposal there is little hope left that the case can ever come to trial, as the US is already pressing for the imposition of tougher sanctions when the UN embargo on Libya is reviewed in a fortnight. Both Washington and London have made clear the sanctions will be in effect lifted once the suspects are surrendered.
"We don't regard this [UN monitoring offer] as a concession, but we can't go beyond this," the British source said. "This is a test of Gadafy's intentions. If he rejects this now, it's hard to see what grounds he has left for continuing to resist." Libya is insisting that the two, if convicted, would have to serve their sentences in their own country. Mr Cook said this week there would be no alternative to jail in Scotland.
Yesterday a Saudi newspaper, Asharq al-Awsat, quoted "informed sources" as saying an announcement of a handover was imminent. Britain and the US changed course on the trial venue because they felt sanctions were being eroded, especially by African and Arab states - some secretly receiving Libyan cash support or cheap oil - which have been systematically ignoring the UN ban on Libyan flights
