Rebels will support quest for justice, says Hague

The Foreign Secretary yesterday played down suggestions that the new Libyan government will block fresh efforts to secure justice for the Lockerbie bombing and Yvonne Fletcher murder.

Mr Hague said the leader of the National Transitional Council (NTC) had pledged to “co-operate fully” with the British authorities but the rebel Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi told journalists in Tripoli that no Libyan citizen would be deported, including Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

Al-Megrahi was convicted in a Scottish court and imprisoned for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people.

Hopes have been raised in the case of WPC Fletcher – who was shot dead while policing a protest outside the Libyan embassy in 1984 - after junior diplomat Abdulmagid Salah Ameri was named as the prime suspect.

However, the Sunday Times reported that NTC member Hassan al-Sagheer had dismissed the prospect of a British trial being held.

He also apparently rejected the idea that al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, could be returned to prison in the UK.

“Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country,” Mr Ameri said.

“We shall continue with this principle.”

Speaking in a round of broadcast interviews yesterday morning, Mr Hague said: “This is an ongoing police investigation so it is quite difficult for me to comment.

“I would say that when chairman (Mustafa Abdel) Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue.

“It is true, it is a fact, that there is no extradition treaty with Libya. but we look to them to co-operate fully.

“So I would not take what has been written in the press today as the last word.”