In These New Times

This is very important to Britain- they need everything they can get to strengthen their very weak case against Gaddafi as the man behind Lockerbie.

PressTV

7th April, 2011

The Libyan revolutionary Council said it has been pressured to sing an apology to Britain over the Gaddafi regime’s role in the IRA attacks and the Lockerbie bombing.

The council said its chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has signed a document on behalf of the nation to apologize for Gaddafi’s provision of a powerful explosive, semtex, to IRA and his regime’s implication in the bombing of Pan American flight over the Scottish city of Lockerbie in 1988.

The revolutionaries’ authority stressed London pressured them to take the responsibility for what the Gaddafi regime had done in Britain.

The revolutionaries’ administration also said the move by the British government is not justifiable as they are fighting Gaddafi forces and they have not been obliged to issue an apology, nor has been the nation, which has suffered under Gaddafi dictatorship over the past decades.

According to council sources, Jalil was forced by the Foreign Office to accept a demand by the British head of the Libya Victims Initiative, Jason McCue, for an “unequivocal apology” on behalf of the Libyan population and a $10 million compensation for each death in IRA attacks.

The sources also said McCue was cooperating with a British diplomatic team led by British ambassador to Rome Christopher Prentice in the revolutionaries’ stronghold of Benghazi.

According to a spokesman Essam Gheriani, Jalili was left without an alternative on the issue considering the diplomatic leverage Libya invaders hold and revolutionaries’ dire need for the Libyan funds frozen overseas.

“The whole world knows the Libyan people are not responsible for Gaddafi’s acts over 40 years. An apology is not warranted for the simple reason that the Libyan people did not participate in these acts. But there is the situation in the international arena,” Gheriani said.

Gheriani also described the situation in which Jalil signed the apology as being under pressure.

“It depends on how you define pressure. I request something from you when you want something from me. It could be defined as pressure,” he said.

Britain is one of the countries that have frozen Libya’s assets and is currently blocking some £100 million in Libyan currency.

“We need those frozen assets. They will be frozen until they have a legitimate body they can be released to, so we need recognition. This is essential for us,” Gheriani stressed.