Libya may pay IRA victims’ families

By Daniel Howden in Tripoli
Independent.ie
Tuesday September 01 2009

LIBYA HAS hinted for the first time that it is considering compensating the families of IRA victims in recognition that it armed the paramilitaries.

Colonel Muammar Gadaffi supplied arms and explosives to IRA paramilitaries during the Troubles and the recent release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, has seen renewed calls for an apology and compensation from Tripoli for its role in the IRA killings.

Libya’s deputy minister for foreign affairs indicated yesterday that the IRA compensation claims were part of on-going discussions between Tripoli and London and that they could be approaching some form of agreement.

Asked what was happening with the claims, Mohammed Siala, the Secretary for International Cooperation, said: “It is a special case. We have a good understanding with the UK.”

In the 1970s and 1980s, Col Gadaffi became an international pariah with his sponsorship of terrorist organisations, whom he refers to as freedom fighters. During this period, Libya sent several shipments of weapons and ammunition to the IRA which were used in a number of attacks in the UK.

British prime minister Gordon Brown assured victims of Libyan-sponsored IRA attacks that he would do everything in his power to support the campaign for compensation at a meeting in December last year.

In 2003 Libya paid out $2.7bn (€1.8bn) in compensation to the families of those killed on Pan Am flight 103 when it exploded over Lockerbie.

– Daniel Howden in Tripoli