US official: Pressure on sanctions helped lead to Lockerbie trial offer

"Pressure" on the Libya sanctions were a contributing factor to the United States offering to try the two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of a US passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland in a third country, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Ronald Newman said in a Voice of America interview late last week.

"The first reason was the we had gone ten years since the bombing. The families wanted justice and the people weren't happy. The second reason was that there was pressure on the sanctions," Newman stated, referring to a decision taken last summer by the Organization of African Unity to stop honoring the air embargo on Libya. When that decision went into effect, officials from several African states began flying directly into Libya without United Nations clearance.

Newman said that the UN requires the Libyan suspects to be tried and if Libya does not accept the current proposal, put forth by the US and Britain in response to previous Libyan suggestions, additional measures would be considered. "If the Libyans, by their refusal to send the suspects for a trial that all the international bodies has said is fair, make it clear that they are not abiding, then I think it is incumbent on the international community to take some further steps."

Libya has not agreed to the proposal, citing concerns that include where the two suspects would serve their sentences if convicted.

Newman said the US believes, "This can't go on forever with him stalling and the international community not stepping up to its responsibilities."

He added, "What we have wanted all along is a trial in a Scottish Court or an American Court. We don't really care if that trial takes place in another country, as long as it is the same court sitting, and that's the offer we made. We took [Libyan leader Moammar] Gaddafi up on one of the compromise proposals which he had said he would accept."

Last week envoys from Suadi Arabia and South Africa visited Libya to discuss the trial proposal, with Libyan officials announcing that progress was made in the talks.

However, the US and Britain have repeatedly maintained that the proposal is non-negotiable, and last week US State Department spokesman James Rubin said, "We do not support negotiations on this point. We do support efforts by those who have or might have influence on the Libyan leader to bring home to him the simple and stark choice he faces, which is either to accept the idea of a third country trial, pursuant to the arrangements the UN has painstakingly worked out, or know that we will by next February, this next month, be working to establish additional measures against Libya."