Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Abdel-Meguid. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Abdel-Meguid. Sort by date Show all posts

Sunday 1 March 2015

Arab reaction to World Court Lockerbie judgement in favour of Libya

[The following are two items dated 1 March 1998, taken from The Pan Am 103 Crash Website which was edited by Safia Aoude:]

Cairo, 1 March 1998: The head of the Arab League on Saturday welcomed the International Court of Justice decision that it had jurisdiction in Libya's dispute with Britain and the United States over a 1988 airliner bombing. "This declaration from the court affirms the sound Arab position that calls for the trial to be in a neutral country,'' said a statement by Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid. Separately, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told reporters that the procedural move was an "important step.''

The Libyan foreign minister, Umar Mustafa al-Muntassir, held talks in Cairo on Sunday with Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid to discuss what action to take within the United Nations Security Council on the Lockerbie crisis after the International Court of Justice judgment that it could decide where the two Lockerbie suspects should be tried (...)

Meguid said the meeting would be followed "by intensive consultations and meetings until the type of future action towards the settlement of this international crisis is defined."

"Legally speaking, the ICJ ruling pronouncing its jurisdiction to hear Libyan complaints against Britain is a major development," Meguid was quoted as saying. "It means that the Libyan request was honoured, while the British and US rejection was turned down."

Al Muntasir said the meeting was aimed at coordinating the Arab League-Libya stand over recent developments. "A comprehensive Libyan plan was amended to conform to these developments," he said, adding that he had discussed the amendments with the secretary general. He expressed the hope that Libya's coordination with the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) would help achieve a unified international stand against "the injustices Libya was suffering within the UN Security Council as well as outside it."
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Tripoli, 1 March 1998: The lawyer of the two Libyan suspects wanted in the Lockerbie bombing said Saturday he still backed a trial in a neutral country even though a ruling by the International Court of Justice was a step toward confirming Libya's jurisdiction. "It is a ruling in the right direction...and I am almost certain that the final ruling will be in line with the 1971 Montreal convention which means that Libya's judiciary is competent to hear the case and is right to refuse to hand over the suspects,'' Ibrahim Legwell, lawyer of the two suspects, told Reuters by telephone from Tripoli.

"It is our interest and that of the families of the bombing victims that there be a trial. That's why we support a neutral venue,'' he said. “We had rejected to hand over the two suspects to the United States or Britain because it was unlawful and also we were certain that they wouldn't get a fair trial there. We know that a trial in Libya would also be suspect. The reasonable solution is a trial in a neutral country,” he said.

Saturday 18 April 2015

The only two nations in the civilised world rejecting Lockerbie compromise

[What follows is a report on a meeting held on 16 April 1998 in Cairo between officials of the Arab League, including the Secretary-General Dr Esmat Abdel-Meguid, and Dr Jim Swire and me:]

The Scottish lawyer Robert Black said on the 16th of April in Cairo after the talks with Abdel Maguid, that his latest proposal to end a dispute between Libya, Britain and the United States over the trial of two Libyan suspects in a 1988 airliner bombing would be his last. Black gave no details on the modifications in the more recent proposal. But he said there was “fine-tuning” to make it more acceptable to the British and Americans.

“What we are hoping for is that continued pressure on these two governments will cause them to see the error of their ways,” Black said.

Robert Black told a news conference he was “51 percent sure” the Libyans would accept the modified proposal. He would not give details, but Black and Swire are suggesting the suspects be tried under Scottish law in a neutral venue by an international panel of judges, without a jury. But Robert Black, a legal expert advising the victims' families, said there was little hope the United States would accept the proposal, although international pressure might succeed in winning Britain's support. “One simply has to give up on the American government,” Black said. “They are unmovable.”

“It's now plain that the United States and the United Kingdom as far as I know are the only two nations in the civilised world which are not saying 'this is a sensible compromise solution, accept it',” Black said after meeting the head of the Cairo-based Arab League. “What I am hoping is that the United Kingdom can see the error of its ways if it is given an opportunity marginally to save face. They have to find a solution. If this proposal does not work, then I suspect that this may very well be the end of the line.

“I can't very well go on drafting scheme after scheme, that are accepted by one side but rejected outright by the other. All three are going to have to accept something with which they are not 100% happy in order for there to be a compromise,” he said. "If they are prepared to do that then there is a remote possibility of progress. But I wouldn't put it above saying there is a slight chance. But any chance is better than no chance."

Swire slammed the British government for not moving fast enough to end the crisis. “For six years, I have been waiting for the men charged with the brutal murder of my daughter to be put on trial but on March 20, the permanent representative of my country in the United Nations was busy telling the Security Council that the sanctions they imposed on Libya were not working.

“Why have you kept us waiting for six years when they are not working? They are demolishing the thing they invited us to depend on and if that doesn't make you angry, then it should.”

Jim Swire, who acted as representative for British victims of the bombing, said Abdel-Meguid would pass the new proposal to the Libyans.

[RB: Just over four months later the UK and USA accepted the solution of a Scottish court in a neutral venue.]

Saturday 16 April 2016

'This is a sensible compromise solution, accept it'

[On this date in 1998 Dr Jim Swire and I had a meeting in Cairo with Dr Esmat Abdel-Meguid, the Secretary-General of the Arab League. What follows is a report on the meeting:]

The Scottish lawyer Robert Black said on the 16th of April in Cairo after the talks with Abdel Maguid, that his latest proposal to end a dispute between Libya, Britain and the United States over the trial of two Libyan suspects in a 1988 airliner bombing would be his last. Black gave no details on the modifications in the more recent proposal. But he said there was “fine-tuning” to make it more acceptable to the British and Americans.

“What we are hoping for is that continued pressure on these two governments will cause them to see the error of their ways,” Black said.

Robert Black told a news conference he was “51 percent sure” the Libyans would accept the modified proposal. He would not give details, but Black and Swire are suggesting the suspects be tried under Scottish law in a neutral venue by an international panel of judges, without a jury. But Robert Black, a legal expert advising the victims' families, said there was little hope the United States would accept the proposal, although international pressure might succeed in winning Britain's support. “One simply has to give up on the American government,” Black said. “They are unmovable.”

“It's now plain that the United States and the United Kingdom as far as I know are the only two nations in the civilised world which are not saying 'this is a sensible compromise solution, accept it',” Black said after meeting the head of the Cairo-based Arab League. “What I am hoping is that the United Kingdom can see the error of its ways if it is given an opportunity marginally to save face. They have to find a solution. If this proposal does not work, then I suspect that this may very well be the end of the line.

“I can't very well go on drafting scheme after scheme, that are accepted by one side but rejected outright by the other. All three are going to have to accept something with which they are not 100% happy in order for there to be a compromise,” he said. "If they are prepared to do that then there is a remote possibility of progress. But I wouldn't put it above saying there is a slight chance. But any chance is better than no chance."

Swire slammed the British government for not moving fast enough to end the crisis. “For six years, I have been waiting for the men charged with the brutal murder of my daughter to be put on trial but on March 20, the permanent representative of my country in the United Nations was busy telling the Security Council that the sanctions they imposed on Libya were not working.

“Why have you kept us waiting for six years when they are not working? They are demolishing the thing they invited us to depend on and if that doesn't make you angry, then it should.”

Jim Swire, who acted as representative for British victims of the bombing, said Abdel-Meguid would pass the new proposal to the Libyans.

[RB: Just over four months later the UK and US governments finally accepted the solution of a Scottish court sitting in a neutral country.]

Sunday 16 April 2017

UK and US only two nations rejecting Lockerbie compromise

[What follows is a report on a meeting held on 16 April 1998 in Cairo between officials of the Arab League, including the Secretary-General Dr Esmat Abdel-Meguid, and Dr Jim Swire and me:]

The Scottish lawyer Robert Black said on the 16th of April in Cairo after the talks with Abdel Maguid, that his latest proposal to end a dispute between Libya, Britain and the United States over the trial of two Libyan suspects in a 1988 airliner bombing would be his last. Black gave no details on the modifications in the more recent proposal. But he said there was “fine-tuning” to make it more acceptable to the British and Americans.

“What we are hoping for is that continued pressure on these two governments will cause them to see the error of their ways,” Black said.

Robert Black told a news conference he was “51 percent sure” the Libyans would accept the modified proposal. He would not give details, but Black and Swire are suggesting the suspects be tried under Scottish law in a neutral venue by an international panel of judges, without a jury. But Robert Black, a legal expert advising the victims' families, said there was little hope the United States would accept the proposal, although international pressure might succeed in winning Britain's support. “One simply has to give up on the American government,” Black said. “They are unmovable.”

“It's now plain that the United States and the United Kingdom as far as I know are the only two nations in the civilised world which are not saying 'this is a sensible compromise solution, accept it',” Black said after meeting the head of the Cairo-based Arab League. “What I am hoping is that the United Kingdom can see the error of its ways if it is given an opportunity marginally to save face. They have to find a solution. If this proposal does not work, then I suspect that this may very well be the end of the line.

“I can't very well go on drafting scheme after scheme, that are accepted by one side but rejected outright by the other. All three are going to have to accept something with which they are not 100% happy in order for there to be a compromise,” he said. "If they are prepared to do that then there is a remote possibility of progress. But I wouldn't put it above saying there is a slight chance. But any chance is better than no chance."

Swire slammed the British government for not moving fast enough to end the crisis. “For six years, I have been waiting for the men charged with the brutal murder of my daughter to be put on trial but on March 20, the permanent representative of my country in the United Nations was busy telling the Security Council that the sanctions they imposed on Libya were not working.

“Why have you kept us waiting for six years when they are not working? They are demolishing the thing they invited us to depend on and if that doesn't make you angry, then it should.”

Jim Swire, who acted as representative for British victims of the bombing, said Abdel-Meguid would pass the new proposal to the Libyans.

[RB: Just over four months later the UK and USA accepted the solution of a Scottish court in a neutral venue.]

Friday 17 April 2015

'The whole truth..'?

[This is the headline over a report in Al-Ahram Weekly Online from this week in 2001:]

A conference on Lockerbie organised by the Arab League this week concluded that the verdict was politically motivated, reports Gamal Nkrumah

Last Saturday, a two-day international conference on the trial at Kamp van Zeist in the Netherlands of two Libyan nationals accused of bombing a PanAm flight over the Scottish village of Lockerbie began at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo. Several luminaries, including a former Algerian president, attended the conference, which condemned the Scottish court's decision to convict former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel-Basset Al-Megrahi and acquit his co-defendant Amin Khalifa Fhima. A UN trial observer from Austria, also at the conference, denounced the trial as unfair and the verdict as irrational.

"Lockerbie was a sham trial. The whole purpose of that farcical but tragic exercise in legal acrobatics was to punish the Libyan regime. The United States and the United Kingdom wanted to make an example of Libya. They want to deter other Third World countries from daring to stand up for the rights of the downtrodden and dispossessed," Dr Said Hafyana, Libya's assistant secretary for legal affairs, told Al-Ahram Weekly.

"To this day, US sanctions have not been lifted," Hafyana said. "The trial was simply a means to penalise Libya and cripple the Libyan government by forcing it to pay hefty compensation fines to the families of the victims," Hafyana argued. "It was mainly a political trial," he added.

The conference on Lockerbie was officially opened by Dr Esmat Abdel-Meguid, the outgoing secretary-general of the Arab League. Abdel-Meguid emphasised in his keynote address that the Arab world and the international community have an obligation to lift completely the sanctions against Libya. He also reminded his audience that the United Nations security council resolution, which imposed sanctions against Libya in 1992, linked ending the sanctions to the extradition of the two suspects. The resolution did not stipulate other conditions. But after the two suspects were extradited to the Netherlands, the Security Council only suspended sanctions, leaving open the door for the US to set more conditions before total withdrawal of the sanctions. The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, the independent sanctions regime unilaterally imposed by the US outside the authority of the UN, is still in force, though due to expire in August. Washington now insists that Libya accept full responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and compensate the families of the victims before it will lifts its sanctions. Official Libyan sources say that sanctions have cost Libya over $26 billion to date.

Former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella was one of the conference guests. Ben Bella has been an outspoken critic of the Lockerbie trial and a tireless champion of the Libyan cause. He joined with former South African President Nelson Mandela to lead the international campaign to lift sanctions from Libya.

Ibrahim Legwell, Al-Megrahi's Libyan lawyer when the case first started, was also present in Cairo. "Historically, there have always been miscarriages of justice," he said. "But there have been no precedents to such a case by which proceedings can be compared and evaluated," he added. "Al-Megrahi insists that this is a case of mistaken identity and that he has been falsely accused. He says that he is innocent and cannot accept a situation where the families of the victims believe him to be the murderer," Legwell said.

Farouk Abou-Eissa, head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union was a panelist at the opening session. With the results of the appeal process still pending, Abou-Eissa appealed to the judges not to give in to the whims of world powers.

Some of the most damning criticisms of the trial came from Dr Hans Köchler, an official UN observer at Kamp van Zeist. Köchler told the Weekly that British and especially American pressure and political influence was brought to bear on the judges and that the trial was unfair. Köchler, a member of the International Progress Organisation, was nominated to his post by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the basis of Security Council Resolution 1192. He is a professor at Innsbruck University in Austria.

Köchler upbraided the court for holding the suspects for an unseemly length of time. "The extraordinary length of detention of the two suspects from their time of arrival in the Netherlands until the beginning of the trial in May 2000 is a serious problem in regard to their basic human rights under European standards, in particular those of the European Convention on Human Rights," he said. The two Libyans were indicted in 1999.

Köchler also ridiculed the prosecution's grip on legal procedure. He noted the curious role played by the Libyan double agent Abdul-Majid Giaka. "The serious problem of process at Kamp van Zeist became evident when it transpired that CIA cables concerning one of the Crown's key witnesses, Giaka, were initially dismissed by the prosecution as 'not relevant.' Only later were they partially released thanks to pressure from the defence. Such incidents seriously damaged the integrity of the entire procedure. In the end, only a select few of the cables sent by the CIA to Giaka were released. Most were never made available," Köchler said. He also claimed that politics intruded into the court. The presence of government representatives of both sides in the courtroom gave the trial a highly political aura. But the official reporting of the court failed to declare this. "The presence of foreign nationals on the side of the defence team was not mentioned in any of the Scottish Court Service's official briefing documents," Köchler said.

Köchler was also concerned by the prosecution's witnesses. According to him, virtually everyone presented by the prosecution as a key witness lacked credibility, some having openly lied to the Court. Köchler was also worried about which information was released. It was officially stated by the Lord Advocate that substantial new information was received from an unnamed foreign government relating to the defence's case. But the content of this information was never revealed. "Foreign governments or secret government agencies may have been allowed, albeit indirectly, to determine which evidence was made available to the Court," Köchler said.

Many questions are still unanswered. It is unclear, for example, why the defence team suddenly dropped its "special defence" and cancelled the appearance of nearly all defence witnesses. Köchler says that defence lawyers were unavailable for comment on this crucial matter. Summing up his views of the trial, Köchler said, "The verdict was based on circumstantial evidence and on a series of highly problematic inferences. There is not one single piece of material evidence linking the two accused to the crime." Finally, Köchler called the court's decision that Al-Megrahi was guilty, "arbitrary and irrational." In conclusion Köchler had grave misgivings about the trial. He thought that it was unfair; that it was not conducted objectively; that the legal process was opaque and that evidence may have been withheld for political reasons.

Wednesday 19 April 2017

Libyan acceptance of neutral venue trial reaffirmed

[What follows is an item headed Breaking of deadlock in Libya? posted on Safia Aoude’s The Pan Am 103 Crash Website and based largely on a report published by the Libyan Jana news agency on this date in 1998:]

Jim Swire held talks in Libya on Saturday with the justice minister about the trial for two suspects in the attack, Libya's official news agency reported on the 19th April. [Dr] Swire, and victims' legal adviser Robert Black met Justice Minister Mohammed Belgasim al-Zuwiy [more often anglicised as Zwai] after arriving in Tripoli.

They discussed suggestions by Swire and Black “concerning reaching ... a fair and just trial of the two suspects in a neutral country, Libya's official news agency, JANA, reported. Swire and Black drove 215 miles from Tunisia to the Libyan capital Saturday, Swire's spokesman, David Ben-Ariyeh [Ben-Aryeah], said in London. Swire told Ben-Ariyeh he was grateful for the “efficient and warm welcome they received.

Black and Swire held talks in Tripoli this week with [the suspects’ lawyer Ibrahim] Legwell and Libyan foreign affairs and justice officials. They also met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a bid to gain support for a trial plan formulated by Black. The most important meeting was held with the Libyan lawyer for Fhima and Megrahi in Tripoli, Dr Ibrahim Legwell.

Ibrahim Legwell said he told Scottish lawyer Robert Black and Jim Swire, that his two Libyan clients were ready to stand trial under Scottish law in a neutral country.

We agreed on several basic points and details,” Legwell told Reuters in a telephone interview from the Libyan capital Tripoli. “I confirmed to them, as I have done previously, that my clients would stand for trial before such a court, which will be set not in Scotland nor the United States, but in a neutral country,” he added. “We also agreed that it would be established with an international panel of judges to be agreed upon and presided over by a senior Scottish judge. The court would operate under the criminal law and procedures of Scotland,” he added as well.

We also are very concerned about how to ensure the safety, the security and the rights for our clients pending, during and after the trial,” he said.

Legwell said Libya's Justice Minister Mohamed Belgacem Zwai, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, and Libya's representative at the UN, Abouzid Omar Dourda [Dorda], attended part of his meetings with Black and Swire when these issues were discussed.

Zwai said he expected a settlement of the dispute over where to hold the trial. “We expect we will reach a solution that satisfies all parties before the World Court issues its decision,” he told reporters in Cairo late Monday. Black and Swire also met Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister Omar Mustafa al-Montasser in Libya and then Gaddafi Monday at the end of their visit. The Libyan revolutionary leader had in the past said he would support whatever the suspects' lawyers accepted.

Black and Swire left Tripoli Monday for Cairo, where they were to submit their proposal and results of their talks in Tripoli to Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) chief, Salim Ahmed Salim, Legwell said. Zwai met Abdel-Meguid Tuesday, officials in Cairo said. Black and Swire also undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the British government to join Libya in accepting the proposal, he added.

Legwell said the plan was that if Black's proposal was accepted by Britain, regional groupings such as the Arab League, the OAU and the European Union would submit to the Security Council a text approving the plan ahead of suspending the sanctions.

Jim Swire arrived in Cairo on the eve of the 21st April, and he told Reuters by phone, that Libya had agreed to surrender the two suspects to the Netherlands for trial. “I think the importance probably of what we've done is they (the Libyans) have renewed that undertaking and they have reinforced it, he said. “This (proposal) was given the blessing of the leader subsequently,” Swire said of his 40-minute meeting with Gaddafi.

The problem of course is, will the west set up the court that is required? I don't know what else the Libyan government can do to prove that they mean it when they say they would come.

Friday 4 November 2016

Steps on the path towards a neutral venue trial

[The following are two snippets published on this date in 1997 on the Libya: News and Views website:]

The head of the Arab League said on Sunday that Libya would never extradite two of its citizens to Britain or the United States for trial on charges of bombing a US airliner in 1988. Esmat Abdel-Meguid told a news conference on the sidelines of a symposium on the future of the Arab world [in Abu Dhabi] that Libya maintained its offer to let the two men stand trial in a neutral country but with Scottish judges. “Libya would not turn over its citizens because, under international law, it is not possible for one country to surrender its citizens to another country unless the two are bound by a mutual extradition agreement,” Abdel-Meguid said. [Reuter]

Libya has said it is impossible for two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing to get a fair trial in Scotland although the Scottish justice system is fair. The Libyan Foreign Ministry said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's invitation to the United Nations to send observers to Scotland to evaluate the Scottish legal system in action was a ploy to undermine other initiatives to solve the problem. “Libya does not doubt the fairness of the Scottish judiciary or its equity,” the Libyan Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued at the weekend and obtained from the official Libyan news agency JANA on Monday. “But...the campaign through the press and statements by officials in Britain and the United States has led to a prior condemnation of the two suspects, ruling out any possibility of a fair and just trial for them in Scotland,” it added. [Reuter]

Sunday 5 April 2015

Our confidence in our innocence has no bounds

[What follows is the text of a CNN report from this date in 1999:]

Libya has handed over two suspects in the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland to representatives of the United Nations.

The suspects are now en route to the Netherlands, where their trial will take place.

Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported that UN representative Hans Corell was at the handover ceremony in Libya.

"In a historical moment awaited by the world, the two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie case were handed over to be flown to the Netherlands for trial before a Scottish court," MENA said.

With the handover, a decade-long manhunt neared its conclusion Monday, as Scottish legal officers prepared to take custody of the two Libyans.

In the Netherlands, preparations continued Monday for the long-awaited trial.

The Dutch Justice Ministry said it would hold a news conference on Monday in connection with the handover of two Libyans.

"The news conference will be today," a spokeswoman said, but gave no information on the timing or location of the arrival of the suspects in the Netherlands after a handover to the United Nations at Tripoli airport.

Scottish prosecutors and journalists waited in Amsterdam while the two accused -- Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah -- began their journey to Europe.

A temporary detention unit at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands is ready for the suspects, Scottish officials said. The construction of bomb-proof cells below the base's former medical unit, which will serve as a courtroom, will take several months to complete.

Sheriff Graham Cox, the regional judge who will oversee pre-trial proceedings, was expected to arrive in the Netherlands on Monday. Scottish prosecutors Norman McFadyen and Jim Brisbane are already there.

Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid had said on Sunday that the handover would take place in "the next 24 or 48 hours."

When Tripoli transferred the men to the charge of the United Nations, that step paved the way for the lifting of punitive UN sanctions against Libya.

[Here is what Megrahi and Fhimah are reported to have said as they were transferred to UN custody in Tripoli:]

Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lameen Fhima, have both made a statement on Libyan TV, saying that the two are innocent and going willingly to court. This is Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi's statement:

"We want to reaffirm to everyone that we are two simple Libyan nationals. We do not practise politics. We support families and have children. We love our children and we love our families. This is our normal life.  

"We were employees until we found ourselves involved in this accusation. Our confidence in our innocence has no bounds. We are confident of our lawyers' ability to defend us.

"Through the facts they [the lawyers] have in their possession we are going to prove our innocence to the world. 

"On the occasion of leaving [Libya] we want to tell everyone that, after getting the permission from the investigating judge and the public prosecutor, we are leaving freely and willingly without any pressure in order to appear before the Scottish court in the Netherlands.

"We want everyone to know that we have a great deal of self-confidence.  

"Time will prove that we are telling the truth and you are present here and are witnesses [of what I am saying]. We thank you once again for coming. We are also sorry that you had a difficult journey [by land]; next time you will come directly [by air] to Tripoli, and we are going to welcome you happily. God bless you."

The second suspect, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, gave a V-for-Victory sign as he said: "I have nothing to add to what my friend has said. 

"I hope to see you on our return very soon, God willing. 

"Thank you. I wish for victory, God willing."