World

Lockerbie Trial May Be Closer

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 15, 1998 / 10:13 AM EST / CBS

Libya's parliament on Tuesday endorsed an agreement to try 2 Libyan suspects in the Netherlands in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner, but did not say whether Libya would surrender the men for trial.

The bomb blew up the aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

Although Libya has accepted in principle that the men could face trial before a panel of Scottish judges in the Netherlands, their handover has been held up by Libya's demand that the men, if convicted, be jailed in Libya.

The United States and Britain insist that the suspects -- Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah -- serve any prison terms in Britain.

Libyan media had suggested that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi does not have the authority to hand over the suspects and that any such decision must be approved by the People's Congress.

Tuesday's statement, read on state-run television during a televised meeting of parliament, expressed satisfaction with the proposed trial but made no mention of whether Libya would actually turn over the suspects.

"The General People's Congress expresses satisfaction with the agreement of the Libyan, British and American sides to try the 2 suspects in the Lockerbie incident in a third country," the statement said.

It also called for "these sides to work on removing any obstacle preventing the 2 suspects from standing trial as soon as possible," an apparent reference to the disagreement over where they would serve any prison terms.

"This is obviously not a formal decision to extradite the 2 suspects," said a Tripoli-based diplomat contacted by telephone.

But a British official said the Libyan statements were encouraging. "We have seen the very limited reports based on Libyan television and, if true, then it is very encouraging," said a Foreign Office spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Libya 10 days ago to press the Security Council's demands on Gadhafi. But Libya news media said it was the Congress, not Gadhafi, whose approval was needed.

The General People's Congress is made up of about 500 representatives from lower level committees and assemblies. Although Libya's political structure stresses the weight of grassroots opinion, the system as a whole generally keeps step with Gadhafi's semi-official guidance.