The curious case of Mousa Koussa- Gaddafi's right hand man defects to London--

[General Duke]

 

It was not so long ago that Moussa Koussa, Libya's foreign minister, was being wheeled out to defend Muammar Gaddafi's regime to foreign journalists at Tripoli's luxurious Rixos hotel.

 

A small and tidy man, aged 64, he would appear – usually tieless in his pale grey suit – and read haltingly from a scripted statement.

 

His message then echoed word for word, idea for idea, that of all of the other loyalists in Gaddafi's regime. He blamed a coalition of al-Qaida and western colonial interests intent on dividing Libya to steal its oil. He accused the foreign media of being part of that plot.

 

Challenged on one such occasion by journalists, he angrily stormed out.

 

Now the country's long time foreign intelligence chief, who became its foreign minister in 2009, has become the most senior of Gaddafi's allies to defect, after fleeing through Tunisia.

 

From one of the regime's most loyal of the loyal, Koussa has become its most prominent defector, after the Foreign Office announced he was "no longer willing" to represent the dictator's regime.

 

What is clear is that his flight has caught many observers on both sides of the Atlantic on the hop. US observers had previously speculated that the American-educated former head of Libya's external security service – and a keen basketball fan – was too closely implicated in the previous wrongdoings of the regime to be a likely candidate as a defector.

 

The Libyan opposition certainly will regard him as very tainted goods, as well as proof that Gaddafi's regime may finally be fracturing and those who once saw their future with him now rushing to reinvent themselves.

 

For although credited with helping to negotiate Libya's rapprochement with the west, ending Libya's pariah status, in a deal which involved its renunciation of weapons of mass destruction, Koussa was head of his country's foreign intelligence service during a time of several terrorist outrages conducted overseas.

 

In 1980, he was expelled from his position as Libya's envoy in London for calling in a newspaper interview for the killing of dissidents and threatening to back the IRA if the United Kingdom didn't hand them over.

 

Then he told The Times: "The revolutionary committees have decided last night to kill two more people in the United Kingdom. I approve of this."

 

Libya later claimed he had been misquoted.

 

Opposition figures have also accused him of being behind the kidnap and murder of several prominent Libyan opposition figures living abroad, including Mansur Kikhia, a former UN ambassador who was abducted from Cairo in 1993 and disappeared.

 

He has also been accused by regime opponents – although it has never been proved – of being involved in the Lockerbie bombing as well as the downing of a French airliner over the Sahara in 1989.

 

Although a French judge originally asked Interpol to seek him for questioning, for the second incident his name was later dropped from the investigation.

 

He has never been charged with any offence and has denied all knowledge of any of the attacks.

 

His role changed, however, after the 11 September 2001, attacks, when Gaddafi offered the west intelligence on al-Qaida. Then it was Koussa who emerged from the shadows to meet with senior UK and US intelligence figures, paving the way for Gaddafi's rehabilitation.

 

More recently he had been at the centre of controversy again when he was accused of being one of the key players behind the scenes pushing for the Scottish courts to release the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.

 

Guma El-Gamaty, an organiser in Britain for a leading Libyan opposition group, said Koussa's action would be "a big hit" that would weaken Gaddafi.

 

"He says he is resigning, that means he is defecting," El-Gamaty said.

 

"He has been Gaddafi's right-hand man for years, running intelligence, running the Lockerbie bomber negotiations, running many things."

 

El-Gamaty said he does not think Koussa is likely to remain in Britain but would likely end up in another country in an effort to avoid possible prosecution. He said that Koussa would not be welcomed into the opposition movement because of his prior actions on behalf of the Gaddafi government.

 

When it emerged that Koussa was on his way to the UK, the Libyan authorities initially claimed he was on a diplomatic mission for Gaddafi.

 

But within hours, the Foreign Office announced his real motive was to seek refuge.

 

While his departure from the regime will be welcomed, what Britain will do with its toxic guest is another question.

[nuune]

His travel to UK looks fishy, he was in Tunisia for diplomatic mission related to a call by the Tunisian government to broker a deal between the rebels and the Libyan government, the UK knowing his travel to Tunisia by road, a special undercover British security officers were dispatched to Tunis quickly, they tracked him down and where he was staying, as they posed to be British diplomats who needed to meet the foreign minister, he accepted the meeting as any foreign diplomat will do, the Tunisian government was not aware of this meeting which lasted for few hours, then the men left Mr Kauss's hotel, only to come back late night to snatch him, and escort him into a British military plane, flown to Farnborough Airport.

 

That his mode of travel was a British military plane and into a British military airport was reported by newspapers.

A case of classic kidnapping, everything the British said about him defecting, or resigning, or no longer representing the Libyan government was put on to his lips, he never uttered those words, he never said one word since they flew him to the UK forcefully.

 

 

Now they are planning him to put on trial for the Lockerbie bombing.

 

 

A very special operation indeed.

[General Duke]

^^^Thanks Nuune, your comments cleared up many problems I had with the official story. It looks like a snatching, poor Mr Koussa

[General Duke]

Scottish prosecutors have asked to interview Moussa Koussa about the Lockerbie bombing after the Libyan foreign minister and spy chief defected to Britain.

 

The request from the Crown Office in Scotland follows demands from Libya's rebel leadership for Koussa to be returned to Libya for trial for murder and crimes against humanity after Muammar Gaddafi is toppled from power.

 

Moussa Koussa. Photograph: Mohamed Messara/EPA William Hague, the British foreign secretary, has said the UK is not offering Koussa immunity from prosecution.

 

 

The Crown Office in Edinburgh has said it is formally asking for its prosecutors and detectives from Dumfries and Galloway police to question Koussa about the 1988 bombing. "We have notified the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the Scottish prosecuting and investigating authorities wish to interview Mr Koussa in connection with the Lockerbie bombing," it said.

 

"The investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and we will pursue all relevant lines of inquiry."

 

Dumfries and Galloway police, which investigated the Lockerbie case, has confirmed its detectives are keen to interview Koussa.

 

It remains unclear what role Koussa played when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 passengers, crew and townspeople. He later emerged as head of Libyan intelligence services.

 

Koussa's defection provides Britain with an unparalleled source of intelligence on the state of the Libyan ruler's inner circle. The Crown Office interview request will further complicate the position of the UK government, which is immediately concerned with using his defection to intensify pressure on Gaddafi and his close allies, and to provide intelligence to the rebellion.

 

Senior figures in the Lockerbie case – including Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the attack, and Professor Robert Black, a lawyer and architect of the trial of two Libyans accused of the atrocity – have said they believe Koussa might have significant information about Libya's role.

 

Koussa was pivotal in the negotiations to hand over the two suspects – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah – for trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001. He oversaw Libya's negotiations to pay billion of pounds in reparations for the attack.

 

The Libyans' consistent denial of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing has been repeatedly rejected by the UK and US governments, and Scottish prosecutors.

 

Swire, from UK Families of Pan Am Flight 103, and Black, emeritus professor of Scots law at Edinburgh University, have said they believe Megrahi is innocent. He remains the only man convicted of the bombing.

 

As Libyan foreign minister, Koussa met Foreign Office and Scottish government officials at least twice in 2008 and 2009 to negotiate Megrahi's release from Greenock prison. Koussa visited Megrahi in jail. Megrahi's lawyer, Tony Scott, has declined to comment on the latest developments.

 

Swire said the weight of evidence pointed to Syria as the main culprit but "within the Libyan regime [Koussa] is in the best position of anyone other than Gaddafi himself to tell us what the regime knows or did. He would be a peerless source of information".

 

Detective Superintendent Mickey Dalgliesh, who is in charge of the Lockerbie case at Dumfries and Galloway police, said the Crown Office request to interview Koussa was "in line with our position that the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and we are determined to pursue all relevant lines of inquiry".

 

Alex Salmond, the first minister of Scotland, said the Crown Office request was "an extremely positive step forward". Koussa "may well have important information to reveal which can assist what has always remained a live investigation".

 

"Megrahi was convicted by a Scottish court on the basis that he was a Libyan intelligence officer and that he did not act alone. This welcome announcement by the Crown Office, and the intention of Dumfries and Galloway police to interview him, will hopefully lead to further information and lines of inquiry coming to light about the Lockerbie atrocity," he said

the Lockerbie story rears its head..

[nuune]

It is even interesting when you read the following from the BBC

 

 

 

31 March 2011

 

Libya: Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa 'defects to UK'

 

 

 

Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa is in Britain and "no longer willing" to work for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime, the UK Foreign Office says.

 

He flew in from Tunisia on a non-commercial flight and was questioned for several hours by British officials.

 

"He travelled here under his own free will. He has told us he is resigning," said a Foreign Office spokesman.

 

His apparent defection comes as rebels in Libya are retreating from former strongholds along the eastern coast.

 

The rebels have now lost the key oil port of Ras Lanuf and the nearby town of Bin Jawad, and are also in full retreat from Brega.

 

In the west, the rebel-held town of Misrata is still reportedly coming under attack from pro-Gaddafi troops, reports say.

 

'Own free will'

 

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We can confirm that Moussa Koussa arrived at Farnborough Airport on 30 March from Tunisia.

 

"He has told us that he is resigning his post. We are discussing this with him and we will release further detail in due course.

 

 

 

 

"Moussa Koussa is one of the most senior figures in Gaddafi's government and his role was to represent the regime internationally - something that he is no longer willing to do.

 

"We encourage those around Gaddafi to abandon him and embrace a better future for Libya that allows political transition and real reform that meets the aspirations of the Libyan people."

 

The Foreign Office in London called on other members of the Libyan government to abandon Colonel Gaddafi.

 

UK intelligence officials hope that his deep knowledge of the Libyan regime will help bring about its early end, says the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Humphrey Hawksley.

Mr Koussa arrived in London on what is believed to have been a British military plane, our correspondent adds.

 

A senior US administration official, speaking to AFP News agency on condition of anonymity, said: "This is a very significant defection and an indication that people around Gaddafi think the writing's on the wall."

 

Earlier, British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that five Libyan diplomats were being expelled from the country.

 

He told MPs that the five, who include the military attache, "could pose a threat" to Britain's security.