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| Moussa Koussa |
Koussa is widely believed to be the man behind the Pan Am/Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, most of then American. But as Gaddafi’s confidante of more than three decades he can also offer unique insights into the regime’s workings. This could help bring military action to a quick conclusion, in the process saving many lives.
To encourage Koussa, the Obama administration announced Monday it was lifting the freeze on his bank accounts and business affairs.
Reporting for The New York Times, Scott Shane says the move underscores the predicament his defection poses for U.S. and British authorities.
“Mr. Koussa’s close knowledge of the ruling circle … could be invaluable in trying to strip Colonel Qaddafi of support.
But as the longtime Libyan intelligence chief and foreign minister, Mr. Koussa is widely believed to be implicated in acts of terrorism and murder over the last three decades, including the assassination of dissidents, the training of international terrorists and the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland …
Brian P. Flynn, a New Yorker whose brother, J. P. Flynn, died in the Lockerbie bombing, said the lifting of sanctions on Mr. Koussa distressed him and other family members of the 270 victims. They have long believed that Mr. Koussa had a role in ordering the bombing, and Scottish prosecutors have requested access to him.
‘It’s all logical in the diplomatic game they need to play,’ said Mr. Flynn, vice president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103. ‘But at what cost to our system of justice? He’s a mass-murder suspect.’ ”
The response of Britain’s Daily Mail is forthright. In an editorial it calls,
“The announcement that Britain is giving safe haven to Gaddafi apologist-in-chief Musa Kusa, a man who is up to his eyeballs in murder and torture …is possibly the sickest inversion of morality…
Thus, we are now harbouring a man almost certainly deeply involved in the Lockerbie atrocity and the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher.
Furthermore, as chief of Gaddafi’s spy agency, Kusa was deeply implicated in the arming and funding of the IRA, providing them with the Semtex used in bombings from Brighton to Omagh.
This then is the murderous monster whose arrival in the U.K. the Government yesterday claimed was a diplomatic coup.
His very presence here is an affront to justice which pours salt into the open wounds of his many innocent British, American and Irish victims.
At the first opportunity, he must be placed on trial for his crimes. The Mail, however, will place odds on him seeing out his days living in a luxury mansion in Surrey.”
Over at The Guardian, editorial writers point out there are historical precedents for dealing with the Libyan defector.
“Koussa has both harmed and helped Britain in the past, with the emphasis in recent years more on the latter than the former. And, with his knowledge of the workings of the Gaddafi inner circle, he can still help us now by pinpointing its weaknesses and identifying other figures who might come over soon.
Some are demanding he be put on trial if evidence emerges of responsibility for attacks on western targets. But it would be amazing, whatever David Cameron says in public, if Koussa had not been given assurances about his own future …
One does not have to look far in regional history for examples of the practical taking precedence over the ideal. General Eisenhower confirmed the Vichy Admiral Darlan as chief in north Africa in order to secure the allegiance of Vichy army units. Later the Second World War allies installed Field Marshal Badoglio, a general who had fought in Libya but abandoned Mussolini, as head of an interim Italian government.”
The Scottish newspaper The Herald sees Koussa’s arrival as a golden opportunity. It is “the perfect and possibly last chance to get clarity and truth over Libya’s connection to the Lockerbie atrocity. Since the release of Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi there has been the growing sense the door was closing on that process. As Dr. Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the Lockerbie bombing, made clear, Koussa is the man ‘who knows everything.’
The Scottish Crown Office and Dumfries & Galloway Police will speak to Foreign & Commonwealth Office officials [as they] try to get access to Koussa. That this is appropriate goes without saying, given that the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open … So far the language of the government in relation to what will now happen to Koussa has been at best vague and at times opaque. The time for transparency over Lockerbie has come. The British government must not stand in the way of that happening.”
Sources: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com
