Libyan convicted in Lockerbie bombing is dead

  By BEN KEATHBENGHAZI, Libya -- Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer who was the only person ever convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, died Sunday nearly three years after he was released from a Scottish prison to the outrage of the relatives of the attack's 270 victims. He was 60.

Scotland released al-Megrahi on Aug. 20, 2009, on compassionate grounds to let him return home to die after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. At the time, doctors predicted he had only three months to live.

Anger over the release was further stoked by the hero's welcome he received on his arrival in Libya - and by subsequent allegations that London had sought his release to preserve business interests in the oil-rich North African nation, strongly denied by the British and Scottish governments.

After his release, he kept a strict silence, living in the family villa surrounded by high walls in a posh Tripoli neighborhood, mostly bedridden or taking a few steps with a cane. Libyan authorities sealed him off from public access. When the one-year anniversary of his release passed, some who visited him said al-Megrahi bitterly mused that the world was rooting for him to die.

His son, Khaled al-Megrahi, confirmed his death in a telephone interview but hung up before giving more details.

To the end, al-Megrahi insisted he had nothing to do with the bombing, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

"I am an innocent man," al-Megrahi said in his last interview, published in several British papers in December. "I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family."

The fall of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in August - and his death two months later - has so far done nothing to dispel the mysteries that surround the case even after al-Megrahi's conviction. The U.S., Britain, and prosecutors in his trial contended that he did not act alone and carried out the bombing at the behest of Libyan intelligence. After Gadhafi's fall, Britain asked Libya's new rulers to help fully investigate but they put off any probe for the forseeable future.

They also rejected Western pressure to jail or return al-Megrahi.

"He is between life and death, so what difference would prison make?" his brother, Abdel-Nasser al-Megrahi, said at the time.

Little was known about al-Megrahi. At his trial, he was described as the "airport security" chief for Libyan intelligence, and witnesses reported him negotiating deals to buy equipment for Libya's secret service and military.

But he became a central figure in both Libya's falling out with the West and then its re-emergence from the cold.

To Libyans, he was a folk hero, an innocent scapegoat used by the West to turn their country into a pariah. The regime presented his handover to Scotland in 1999 as a necessary sacrifice to restore Libya's relations with the world.

In the months ahead of his release, Tripoli put enormous pressure on Britain, warning that if the ailing al-Megrahi died in a Scottish prison, all British commercial activity in Libya would be cut off and a wave of demonstrations would erupt outside British embassies, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic memos. The Libyans even implied "that the welfare of U.K. diplomats and citizens in Libya would be at risk," the memos say.

But in the eyes of many Americans and Europeans, he was the foot-soldier carrying out orders from Gadhafi's regime. Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister at the time of the conviction, said the verdict "confirms our long-standing suspicion that Libya instigated the Lockerbie bombing."

The bombing that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland was one of the deadliest terror attacks in modern history. The flight was heading to New York from London's Heathrow airport and many of the victims were American college students flying home to for Christmas.

Gadhafi handed over al-Megrahi and a second suspect to Scottish authorities after years of punishing U.N. sanctions. Four years later, in 2003, Gadhafi acknowledged responsibility - though not guilt - for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation of about $2.7 billion to the Lockerbie victims' families. He also pledged to dismantle all weapons of mass destruction and joined the U.S.-led war on terror.

The regime maintained it handed al-Megrahi over and paid compensation only to win the lifting of sanctions. The steps won Gadhafi quick rewards, with Western powers resuming diplomatic contacts and signing lucrative business deals.

In 2001, a Scottish court - set up in the neutral ground of a military base in the Netherlands - convicted al-Megrahi of planting the bomb but acquitted his co-defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, a Libyan Arab Airlines official, of all charges. El-Megrahi ended up serving eight years of a life sentence.

The prosecution's case was built around a tiny fragment of circuit board discovered among the airline wreckage that investigators determined was part of the timer of the bomb, hidden in a suitcase. Investigators said the suitcase was loaded onto a flight from Malta, booked through to Pan Am 103 via Frankfurt.

An executive from a Swiss company testified that he had sold timers of the same make to Libya. Investigators found that al-Megrahi traveled to Malta on a false passport a day before the suitcase was checked in and left the following day.

Key to convicting al-Megrahi was the testimony of a Malta shopkeeper who identified him as having bought a man's shirt in his store. Scraps of the garment were found wrapped around the timing device.

However, a Scottish judicial body that carried out a major review of the evidence cast doubt on the shopowner's ID of al-Megrahi and said there was evidence the shirt was purchased on a day when al-Megrahi was not in Malta.

Al-Megrahi's lawyers also claimed that British and U.S. authorities tampered with evidence, disregarded witness statements and steered investigators away from suggestions the bombing was an Iranian-financed plot carried out by Palestinians to avenge the shooting down of a civilian Iranian airliner by a U.S. warship - in which some 290 people were killed - several months before the Lockerbie bombing. The judicial body, however, discounted theories of intentional misdirection.

Al-Megrahi had appealed his conviction, but had to drop the appeal to be eligible for compassionate release.

"I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear - all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do," al-Megrahi said in a statement after his release.

"I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out - until my diagnosis of cancer," he said. "To those victims' relatives who can bear to hear me say this, they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered."

Some of the victims' families in Britain are also not convinced of al-Megrahi's guilt.

"By abandoning his appeal, we the families will be robbed of the opportunity to find justice," the Rev. John Mosey, whose daughter Helga died aboard Flight 103, said in 2009.

"I came away from the court 85 percent convinced he did not do it, based on the evidence I heard," said Mosey, who is from Cumbria, England, and attended all but one week of al-Megrahi's nine-month trial.

In announcing al-Megrahi's release from prison, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said he was motivated by Scottish values to show mercy even though al-Megrahi had not shown compassion to his victims.

"Some hurts can never heal, some scars can never fade," MacAskill said. "Mr. al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power."

Al-Megrahi is survived by his wife, Aisha, and five children.

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NATO says airstrike mistakenly hit Libyan rebels

  By ADAM SCHRECK and DON MELVINTRIPOLI, Libya -- NATO said Saturday it mistakenly struck a column of Libyan rebel vehicles in an airstrike near an eastern oil town two days earlier and expressed regret for any casualties that might have resulted.

The alliance has accidentally hit rebel forces before in its air campaign to protect civilians in the civil war between Moammar Gadhafi's military and the fighters trying to end his more than four decades in power. The rebels have also complained that NATO's strikes have not helped them gain decisive momentum against the Libyan leader's better trained and equipped military, which still has firm control over most of western Libya. The rebels control much of the east.

The alliance statement gave no figures on casualties from Thursday's airstrike, but said it regretted "any possible loss of life or injuries caused by this unfortunate incident."

NATO said its forces spotted a column of military vehicles near the frequent flashpoint town of Brega where forces loyal to Gadhafi had recently been operating and hit them because they believed they posed a threat to civilians.

"NATO can now confirm that the vehicles hit were part of an opposition patrol," the statement said.

International military forces have had some trouble in hitting government troops because of their proximity to civilians.

Gadhafi's troops have also used civilian vehicles, making them difficult to distinguish from rebel forces.

A doctor in the nearby city of Ajdabiya said the bodies of four rebel fighters were brought to his hospital around the time of Thursday's strike, but it was not possible to confirm whether they were killed in the bombardment.

A rebel military spokesman, Abdel-Rahman Abu-Sin, said Saturday that they appreciated NATO's efforts and understood the difficulty in differentiating between the two sides along shifting front lines.

Thursday's airstrike was similar to one on April 7 in which NATO hit a convoy of rebel tanks, killing at least five fighters, as the rebels were closing in on Brega. NATO officials said at the time they did not know the rebels had any tanks, a statement that raised eyebrows as footage of the rebels with tanks had been on YouTube for weeks.

A week earlier, NATO also mistakenly targeted rebels as they tried to retake Brega. The rebels said 13 of their fighters were killed in that attack.

Earlier Saturday, NATO accused Gadhafi's forces of using mosques and children's parks as shields for his military operations and said the Libyan leader is "brutally attacking" his people.

At least two explosions shook the capital, Tripoli, Saturday as NATO jets soared above the city, hours after Gadhafi lashed out against airstrikes in a speech Friday night, insisting "NATO will be defeated." It was not immediately clear what had been hit or if any casualties were reported.

In Brussels on Saturday, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu dismissed Gadhafi's speech as "outrageous."

The alliance, which has a mandate to protect civilians, has been ramping up the pressure on Gadhafi's regime as a four-month uprising devolved into a civil war. Though most airstrikes happen under cover of darkness, daytime raids have grown more frequent.

Libya's Health Ministry released new casualty figures that put the number of civilians purportedly killed in NATO airstrikes through June 7 at 856. The figure could not be independently verified, and previous government-announced tolls from individual strikes have proven to be exaggerated.

Lungescu rejected the casualty figures.

"We are saving countless lives every day across the country," she said. "We are conducting operations with utmost care and precision to avoid civilian casualties. Civilian casualties figures mentioned by the Libyan regime are pure propaganda."

She also accused Gadhafi and his regime of "systematically and brutally attacking the Libyan people," saying government forces "have been shelling cities, mining ports and using mosques and children's parks as shields."

Lungescu's comments also countered allegations from Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, who accused NATO on Friday of a "new level of aggression" and said the military alliance has intentionally targeted civilian buildings in recent days, including a hotel and a university.

Defense officials in London on Saturday gave details of British airstrikes over the previous two days, indicating an upswing in fighting along the Tunisian border in the far west.

Maj. Gen. Nick Pope, chief of the Defense Staff's Communications Office, said British fighter jets destroyed three armed Libyan trucks and badly damaged a fourth in the mountainous region around the rebel-held city of Nalut.

Abdel Salam Othman Abou el-Qassam, speaking by phone from the operations room of rebel Western Mountain military council, said Gadhafi forces tried to advance Friday on Nalut. They cut electricity and water supplies, after pounding the city with mortar fire for several days.

The rebels blocked the advance, he said, in heavy fighting with hundreds of pro-Gadhafi fighters. Eight rebel fighters died.

A day earlier, Pope said, jets used Paveway guided bombs to destroy a convoy of four armed trucks 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Misrata. Rebels have been fighting for weeks to break out of the port city toward Tripoli, 125 miles (200 kilometers) to the west.

Officials took journalists Saturday to visit a university building that the government claims was hit by a NATO airstrike.

Students and faculty told reporters that an explosion that tore a hole in a three-story building housing classrooms and offices happened sometime midday Friday, though accounts differed on the timing.

One English-speaking student interviewed by The Associated Press was being told what to say in Arabic by a plainclothes government official standing nearby.

No one was reported injured or killed. The campus sits a few hundred yards (meters) from what appears to be a military installation. The building that was damaged was an aging concrete structure next to what students said were new university buildings under construction.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States launched the first strikes against Gadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO, which is joined by a number of Arab allies, assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31.

Senior delegates from the Arab League, the European Union and the African Union along with envoys from the U.N. and the Organization of the Islamic Conference met in Cairo to review the developments in Libya.

Arab League chief Amr Moussa said the NATO mandate is not about bringing down Gadhafi's regime and a political solution is urgently needed.

"The situation has gone beyond what was expected. It is only natural that we speed up the search for a political solution and achieving a cease-fire," he said.

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Melvin reported from Brussels. Associated Press writers Hadeel al-Shalchi in Dafniya, Libya, and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

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US invites Libyan rebels to open office in DC

  By MICHELLE FAUL and DIAA HADIDTRIPOLI, Libya -- NATO launched its most intense bombardment yet against Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold of Tripoli Tuesday, while a senior U.S. diplomat said President Barack Obama has invited the Libyan rebels' National Transitional Council to open an office in Washington D.C.

The international community has been stepping up airstrikes and diplomatic efforts against the regime in a bid to break a virtual stalemate, with the rebels in the east and Gadhafi maintaining his hold on most of the west.

The NATO airstrikes hit in rapid succession within a half-hour time span, setting off more than 20 explosions and sending up plumes of acrid-smelling smoke from an area around Gadhafi's sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound in central Tripoli.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said at least three people were killed and dozens wounded in NATO strikes that targeted what he described as buildings used by volunteer units of the Libyan army.

NATO said in a statement that a number of precision-guided weapons hit a vehicle storage facility adjacent to Bab al-Aziziya that has been used to supply regime forces "conducting attacks on civilians." It was not immediately clear if the facility was the only target hit in the barrage. Bab al-Aziziya, which includes a number of military facilities, has been pounded repeatedly by NATO strikes.

The U.S. launched the international air campaign on March 19 after the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution to protect civilians after Gadhafi sent his forces to crush a the public uprising against his rule. NATO, which has taken over the airstrikes, says it has been doing its best to minimize the risk of collateral damage.

The alliance has been escalating and widening the scope of its strikes over the past weeks, hiking the pressure on Gadhafi, while many countries have built closer ties with the rebel movement that has control of the eastern half of Libya.

In a significant new deployment of firepower, France and Britain are bringing attack helicopters to use in the strikes in Libya as soon as possible, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said Monday.

The use of attack helicopters would appear to mark a new strategy for NATO, which has seen Gadhafi's forces adapt, often turning to urban fighting to make such strikes by fighter planes more difficult.

Nimble, low-flying helicopters have much more leeway to pick targets with precision than jets. But they also are much more vulnerable to ground fire. The alliance has had no military deaths since it first started enforcing a no-fly zone on March 31.

Several countries, including France and Italy, have recognized the NTC, while the United States, the European Union and others have established a diplomatic presence in Benghazi.

Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, stopped short of formally recognizing the council in his remarks Tuesday, but said it was credible voice of the Libyans.

"We are not talking to Gadhafi and his people. They are not talking to us. They have lost legitimacy. We are dealing with people that we consider to be legitimate and representative and credible," Feltman told reporters during a visit to the de-facto rebel capital of Benghazi.

Feltman also said he expects Congress to vote soon to let frozen regime assets in the U.S. be used for purely humanitarian aid in Libya.

He praised the NTC for its emphasis on freeing Libya and for adhering to the Geneva conventions to protect human rights, which he called a sharp contrast to the position taken by Gadhafi's regime.

He said that the U.S. has given $53.5 million to address the humanitarian crisis in Libya, emphasizing that the money is going toward "non-lethal" aid.

Rebel leaders welcome the diplomatic contact, but say only better weapons will help them defeat Gadhafi.

"It is just not enough to recognize (us) and visit the liberated areas," spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga told AP. "We have tried very hard to explain to them that we need the arms, we need funding, to be able to bring this to a successful conclusion at the earliest possible time and with the fewest humanitarian costs possible."

Rebels now control the populated coastal strip in the country's east and the western port city of Misrata, which Gadhafi's forces have besieged for months. They also control pockets in Libya's western Nafusa mountain range.

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