Why would the Americans be planning a deal with
Libya?
Libya has been isolated from the international community for
many years because of the connection with the Lockerbie bombing.
Sanctions were imposed by the UN, and it is one of the countries
that the US name as being in the ‘Axis of Evil’.
The theory in this episode is that if Libya accepts responsibility
for Lockerbie and pays seven billion dollars in reparations
then the US will end unilateral sanctions and remove them
from the axis of evil.
What happened at Lockerbie?
On the 21st December 1988, a Pan Am jumbo jet with 259 people
on board crashed onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie. It killed
everyone on board, as well as 11 people who lived in the town
below. Eye witnesses reported seeing the plane explode in
a ball of flame, before coming crashing down and raining ‘liquid
fire’ down on the town below.
It was the biggest police operation ever mounted in Scotland.
It quickly became apparent that the explosion was caused by
a bomb, and the police investigation became a murder enquiry.
The bomb was hidden in a tape-recorder, concealed in a suitcase
in the hold.
In 1991 a warrant was issued for the arrest of Abdel Baset
Ali Mohammed el-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima, two Libyan
intelligence officers. After years of wrangling the trial
took place, and eventually Megrahi was found guilty in 2001.
Was Libya really guilty of the bombing?
When investigators first realised the explosion had been caused
by a bomb, their minds first turned to Iran and Syria as possible
culprits. Six months before the explosion, an Iranian airbus
had been blown up, killing 290 Muslims on a pilgrimage to
Mecca. It had been shot out of the air by a US ground to air
missile, and the Iranian government vowed to avenge the deaths.
Four months later German police arrested a group of Palestinian
terrorists. The group was based in Syria. They were found
with a bomb packed into a Toshiba tape recorder, and it was
believed they were intending to blow up an American passenger
plane.
When an arrest was finally made 3 years after the tragedy,
many people were surprised that it was two Libyan intelligence
officers that were to go on trial. The claim was that when
US warplanes attacked Libya in 1986 they had killed Colonel
Gadaffi’s adopted daughter. By December 1988 Ronald
Reagan only had a few weeks left in office, so Gadaffi only
had a few weeks left to take revenge.
However in the three years after the tragedy various political
changes had happened. Saddam Hussain had invaded Kuwait and
the Americans were keen to form a coalition to force him out.
They wanted both Iran and Syria to join this coalition. Since
the bomb on the Pan Am flight was identical to the one found
in Germany, many people believe there was some kind of conspiracy
at work, and the Libyans were used as scapegoats.
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