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Patterns of Global Terrorism 1998 - Libya

Despite a joint US-UK offer to prosecute the two Libyans charged with the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103 before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands, Libya remained unwilling to meet the demands of UN Security Council resolutions 731, 748, 883, and 1192. These measures call upon Libyan leader Qadhafi to cease all support to terrorism, turn over the two indicted Pan Am 103 suspects for trial, and cooperate in the investigation. (On 5 April 1999, Libya turned over the two suspects, 'Abd al Basit al-Megrahi and Lamin Kalifah Fhima, for prosecution in the Netherlands under Scottish law.)

French officials in January completed their investigation into the bombing in 1989 of UTA Flight 772. The French officials believe that the Libyan intelligence service was responsible and named Qadhafi's brother-in-law, Muhammad Sanusi, as the attack's mastermind. (Six Libyan suspects, all intelligence officers, were tried in absentia by a French court in March 1999. The suspects were convicted on 8 March 1999.)

Libya remains the primary suspect in several other past terrorist operations, including the La Belle discotheque bombing in Berlin in 1986, which killed two US servicemen, one Turkish civilian, and wounded more than 200. The trial in Germany of five defendants in the case, who are accused of "an act of assassination commissioned by the Libyan state," began in November 1997 and continued through 1998.

Despite ongoing sanctions against Libya for its sponsorship of terrorism, Tripoli in 1998 continued to harass and intimidate expatriate dissidents. Moreover, Qadhafi continued publicly and privately to support Palestinian terrorist groups, including the PIJ and the PFLP-GC. Libya has not been implicated in any international terrorist act for several years, however.

Topics: Terrorism,