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The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal. Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards. The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release. The correspondence makes it plain that the key...

As Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the leader of Libya, hosted an African Union summit last week, his name was romantically linked in a court case with the queen mother of an ancestral Ugandan kingdom. Two editors of a Ugandan daily newspaper are being prosecuted for alleging that he is having an affair with her. The Libyan ambassador, who initially brought the case seeking £245m in damages, said in his affidavit that the editors had launched an almost daily campaign to defame Gadaffi. The Ugandan director of public prosecutions, which has taken over the case, accused the editors of defaming a foreign...

Gaddafi, addressing a meeting on ways to expand cooperation between the United Nations and African Union, urged the Court to stop its proceedings against Bashir: "Why do we have to hold President Bashir or the Sudanese government responsible when the Darfur problem was caused by outside parties, and Tel Aviv [Israel], for example, is behind the Darfur crisis?"

Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country during the 20th century. The money will be invested by Italy over a 25-year period. For VOA, Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday signed a "friendship pact" with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Under the pact, Italy agreed to compensate Libya for abuses it committed during its colonial rule of the North African country. Italy will invest $5 billion in Libya in a deal that effectively turns the page on colonial-era disputes that have long...

TUNIS, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Iran risks going the same way as Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its confrontation with the West and is too weak to meet the challenges it faces alone, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Tuesday. "What Iran is doing is pure vanity," said Gaddafi. "If a decision is taken against Iran, it will suffer the same fate as Iraq... Iran is no stronger than Iraq and will be unable to resist."

Excerpt - Libya has taken "worryingly retaliatory measures" against Switzerland following the recent arrest of leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son in Geneva, according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry. Col Gaddafi's government has recalled some of its diplomats from Switzerland, reduced flights between the countries, stopped processing visa requests from Swiss citizens, demanded the closure of Swiss firms in Libya and detained two Swiss citizens. Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has formally complained about the moves to her Libyan counterpart and has advised citizens not to travel to Libya. ~ snip ~

(AGI) - Geneva, 17 July - The detention of Hannibal Gheddafi, son of the Libyan President, and his wife lasted just one night. The Gheddafis, arrested yesterday evening accused of mistreating two staff of the hotel in Geneva where they were staying, were released after the payment of bail of 309,000 euro. The most serious charges were made against Colonel Gheddafi's daughter-in-law, 9 months' pregnant and admitted today to the University of Geneva hospital. The two employees of the Hotel Presidente Wilson, a Moroccan man and a Tunisian woman showed the injuries to the judge but the Gheddafis' lawyers...

Excerpt - TRIPOLI, Libya -- Recently, Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi wrote a letter to President Bush, asking: Where are we going with our relationship? Five years ago, the Bush administration helped persuade Libya -- for decades one of the world's leading sponsors of terrorism -- to scrap its nuclear ambitions and dismantle its terror infrastructure. It ranks as one of the president's signature foreign-policy successes and was supposed to blaze a path for other rogue states, principally North Korea and Iran. Now, these ties are fraying. According to Libyan diplomats who have seen the letter, sent in early March,...

Libyan leader says the Bible is counterfeit Thursday, 20th March 2008. 11:42am By: Manasseh Zindo. LIBYAN leader Col Muammar Gadaffi, who is in Uganda, on Wednesday March 19 celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Prophet Mohammed with a series of attacks on European countries and the Bible for besmirching the Prophet Gadaffi was speaking to a large crowd at Nakivubo War Memorial Stadium in Kampala after leading the Thuhur (afternoon) prayer, where he said any Bible and Torah (Old Testament) that does not mention the Prophet Mohammed was written by mankind and therefore a fraud. Full article posted here

COLONEL Muammar Gadaffi yesterday celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Prophet Muhammad with a two-hour speech in which he attacked the Scandinavian countries for besmirching the Prophet, the Arabs for monopolising the Kaaba and signed off by describing the Bible as a forgery. Speaking to the mammoth crowd that braved the afternoon heat in Nakivubo War Memorial Stadium after leading the Thuhur (afternoon) prayer, Col. Gadaffi said any Bible and Tora (Old Testament) that does not mention Prophet Muhammad was written by mankind and therefore a fraud. "The Bible we have now is not the one that was revealed...

Can we ignore Sen. Obama's silence about Muammar Kaddafi? We know that Louis Farrakhan has said positive things about Barack Obama. And he's not the only one. This is the same Louis Farrakhan who has travelled to Libya to meet with and say positive things about Kaddafi, who has long-standing ties to terrorism. And that's not all. The former pastor at Obama's church, Jeremiah Wright, has not only said positive things about Farrakhan. In the 1980s, he went on a trip with Farrakhan to ... you guessed it, Libya, to meet with Kaddafi. With all of Obama's ties to Kaddafi...

February 24, 2008 Mystery over Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, son of French top gun Albert Preziosi Jon Swain Seldom have the French been so glad to see the back of an official guest as they were last year when Colonel Muammar Gadaffi left Paris after a chaotic five-day visit when he pitched his bedouin tent a stone’s throw from the Elys饠Palace. Last week the Libyan leader had the last laugh when the French were reminded of the possibility that their recent guest is the son of a French war hero. According to a legend circulating in Vezzani, Corsica, Gadaffi’s father was...

Excerpt - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi arrives in Paris Monday for a high-profile visit set to usher in multi-billion-euro nuclear and aviation contracts, even as critics lashed President Nicolas Sarkozy for welcoming the former pariah. Staying in a heated Bedouin tent pitched near the Elysee presidential palace, Kadhafi is expected during the five-day visit to approve the purchase of three billion euros (4.4 billion dollars) of Airbus planes, a nuclear reactor and possibly Rafale fighter jets. ~ snip ~

Jerusalem, 14 May (AKI) - The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was taken to hospital on Sunday after suffering a stroke, according to a report on the Palestinian news agency Maan, quoted by Israeli news site Ynet. The condition of the 65-year old leader is reported to be serious and family members have been arriving at the hospital, the report said.

The Gadaffi gambit: world peace talks The chaos in the Middle East has prompted a radical diplomatic overture from a former opponent of the US. robert fox reports The Libyan government is floating a proposal to host an international peace conference on the Middle East. It would focus on the crisis in Iraq, but would also embrace Iran and the rapidly deteriorating situation in Lebanon. The Gadaffi family have indicated that their preferred co-chairmen are Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton...

TOKYO - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told a visiting Japanese official that his country has urged North Korea to give up efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, the Foreign Ministry said Friday. Iwao Matsuda, Japan's state minister for science and technology policy, held talks with Gadhafi in Sebha, about 375 miles south of Tripoli, on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement issued Friday. Gadhafi surprised the world in late 2003 when he swore off terrorism and announced plans to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs. Libya was eager to end his international isolation and economic hardships...

U.S. singer Lionel Richie sings in front of the ruined home of Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi in Tripoli, Libya April 14, 2006. With Muammar Gaddafi's home as a backdrop, U.S. singer Lionel Richie jived and rocked for an adoring Libyan audience on Saturday in a concert to mark the 20th anniversary of a U.S. raid on the North African country. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

April 15, 2006 -- The American pop star Lionel Richie and the Spanish opera singer Jose Carreras have performed in a concert in Tripoli to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. bombing raid on Libya. About 40 people, including an adopted daughter of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, were killed in the raids on Tripoli and Benghazi in the early hours of April 15, 2006. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan said the air strikes were launched in retaliation for Libyan complicity in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed an American soldier.

LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi called French President Jacques Chirac overnight to express his concern about rioting in Paris suburbs and other parts of France. The Libyan national news agency reported that Mr Chirac thanked Colonel Gaddafi for his interest and reassured him that the situation was under control. Colonel Gaddafi was reported saying Libya was "disposed to help France overcome these events," which he described as "regrettable." The report did not outline what kind of aid might have been forthcoming. French authorities have stepped up police action against youths responsible for more than a week of urban riots, in...

Here are some excerpts from a report by the official news agency in Libya on Muammar al-Qathafi's statements: The Leader underscored the need to launch full freedom in Libya, the Jamahiri state " the state of men and women, a country which is all civilian society and is self- run." He called for lifting all restrictions that stand in the face of this, so that Libyans be fully free in selecting economic activities, including founding companies on partnership bases, or on the bases of wages " work with fees". The leader also underscored the freedom of faith, worship, and religion,...

LONDON, England (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was quoted as saying yesterday that the United Nations must scrap the Security Council and give its powers to the General Assembly, if it ever hopes to become a truly democratic organisation. In a full-page advertisement in The Guardian newspaper, Gadhafi called the UN Security Council "an ugly, forceful, and horrible instrument of dictatorship - an executioner's whip with no appeal against its judgment, even if its judgment is unfair, biased and harmful." The Security Council's five permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - have veto...

The parquet floor of Paris engages of the continuations against the son of Kadhafi The parquet floor of Paris will engage of the continuations against Hannibal Kadhafi, the son of president Libyen, for violences which he would have exerted on his partner at the time of a stay at the beginning of February in Paris, one learned Monday from legal source. Hannibal Kadhafi will be continued for "voluntary violence on anybody vulnerable, in the event his/her concubine pregnant, having involved a total disablement of work (ITT) of less than 8 days", one specified of the same source. Justice also...

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Hannibal Gaddafi, who was allegedly embroiled recently in scuffles in France, has also been accused of a violent incident in Denmark. "We have been informed by the police of this case of violence. But no complaint has been lodged with the police," the head of protocol at the Danish foreign ministry, ambassador Christopher Bo Bramsen, said. "We are following the matter," he said, adding that Hannibal Gaddafi held a diplomatic passport and therefore enjoyed diplomatic immunity. According to the tabloid Ekstra Bladet, Danish police were called three weeks ago to a violent incident involving...

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's politically influential son said on Thursday that armed resistance to U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq was legitimate but condemned the killing of innocent hostages. Seif al-Islam Gaddafi said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had called the war in Iraq illegal, key members of the Security Council had opposed it and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction -- the main reason Washington gave for invading Iraq -- removed any moral justification for military action. "The result is clear -- that it's an illegal occupation and therefore people should resist it," Gaddafi...

  Libya's Colonel Gaddafi LIBYA ARMS EMBARGO LIFTED The European Union has agreed to lift an 18-year-old arms embargo on Libya. The EU welcomed the country's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction and movement towards "responsible government." "Libya is among the first countries to dismantle voluntarily its WMD programmes under international supervision through a transparent and cooperative process," a statement said. Sanctions were imposed on Libya in 1986 because of its role in state-sponsored terrorism. The EU eased sanctions in 1999 but maintained a series of restrictive measures on key products, notably military equipment. Italy has since been pressing...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 29 (AFP) - Libya on Wednesday offered some colourful ideas for reforming the United Nations, including moving the General Assembly to Geneva and letting Bill Clinton resolve the world's conflicts and wars. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, never shy about putting forward visionary proposals, also wants his nation to have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalghem said. "The past 59 years have proven that the General Assembly is merely a decorative body without a soul," Shalghem said as Libya took the podium at the annual United Nations debate of...

The youngest son of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, was involved in a high-speed police chase through central Paris that ended in fisticuffs, according to French officials. The Porsche-driving Moutassim Gaddafi, 28, nicknamed "Hannibal", was pursued by French police after driving at speed down the Champs Elysees and allegedly jumping a red light early yesterday. The police eventually stopped his car at about 2am but, as they tried to speak to Mr Gaddafi, two other vehicles drew up. Their occupants, Mr Gaddafi's bodyguards, then tried to step between him and the officers, said police. An argument followed and one of...

BERLIN (AP) -- Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million in compensation for victims of a 1986 bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman and injured 229 others, the Libyan ambassador to Germany said. The deal applies to Germans who were wounded in the April 5, 1986 attack on the LaBelle disco and the family of the slain Turkish woman, but not the families of two Americans, Ambassador Said Abdulaati told The Associated Press. It is the latest step in an effort by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to end his country's pariah status, following...

The Iraq War did not Force Gadaffi's HandThe Financial Times, March 9, 2004Martin S. Indyk, Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy Martin S. Indyk Embarrassed by the failure to find Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, President George W. Bush is trying to find another WMD-related justification for his pre-emptive war on Iraq. Bush administration spokesmen have been quick to portray Libya's December decision to abandon WMD programmes as the direct result of the US invasion of Iraq or, as Mr. Bush himself put it in his State of the Union address: "Nine months of intense negotiations succeeded with...

LONDON (Reuters) - Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could buy promoted premier league soccer club Crystal Palace, The Guardian says. It said Gaddafi, who owns a 7.5 percent stake in Italian club Juventus, has not made an offer yet but has shown interest in the small south London club that surprisingly won the promotion playoffs in May. "I've been told that Gaddafi and his son (Al-Saadi) are interested in acquiring Palace," the Guardian quoted the club's chairman Simon Jordan as saying. Jordan said there had been no formal approach but if there was "I'd consider it ... If it's...

Libyan leader’s daughter, Aisha al-Gaddafi, has her request to represent Saddam granted Lawyers say they are still denied entry to Iraq and access to Saddam Iran plans to submit charges against the former Iraqi dictator for his 1980 invasion and for using chemical weapons against Iranians AISHA al-Gaddafi, the daughter of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, has joined the legal team representing Saddam Hussein in the tribunal set up to try the captured former Iraqi leader for war crimes. The Libyan lawyer is the latest high profile person to join the team, which has so far been denied...

Jana/1 The Leader of the Revolution/ statement Tripoli/ 5 Assaif/ Jana The Leader of the Revolution made a statement tonight to Jana news agency in which he said: "I express my profound regrets over Reagan's death before he appears before justice to held to account for his ugly crime in 1986 against Libyan children. / Jamahiriya News Agency/

PARIS (AFP) - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said he "absolutely does not regret the past", despite his country's former alleged support for terrorism. "We were in a phase of fighting for emancipation, liberation.... We were accused of being terrorists, but that is the price we had to pay. If that is terrorism, then we are proud to be terrorists because we helped the liberation of the (African) continent", Kadhafi told public Radio France Internationale. "I absolutely do not regret the past", he said in comments recorded in Brussels. The Libyan leader was speaking on the second and final day...

So "brave" Muammar Gadafy has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. A handshake with Tony Blair has sealed his re-entry into the international community, with contracts worth several hundred million pounds for Shell and BAE to follow. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the "war on terror". The motives, however, are rather more cynical. Negotiations for a rehabilitated public image for Colonel Gadafy, linked to improved western access to Libyan oil, began to surface in August 2002 with the visit by the Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien,...

Libya on Thursday brought to an end decades of international isolation as a pariah state with a promise to join forces with the United States of America and the United Kingdom to fight the global war against terrorism.It is to provide intelligence to help root out Al Qaeda and on Thursday secured a gas exploration deal with Shell that could be worth billions of dollars.Tony Blair, UK Prime Minister, held two hours of talks with Col. Muammer Gadaffi in a bedroom tent a few miles outside of Tripoli, the first time a British leader has set foot in the country...

Full diplomatic relations between Libya and the United States could be restored by the end of the year, U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon said Monday on arriving in Tripoli for his second visit in a month as the two nations work toward putting decades of animosity behind them. Weldon, leading a seven-member congressional delegation, planned to meet Tuesday with Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi and the nation's prime minister Shokri Ghanem, whose recent remarks suggesting Libya hadn't taken responsibility for a 1988 passenger plane bombing briefly shook up the fresh start. "The steps he is taking are positive," Weldon said of Gadhafi....

LIBYA'S Colonel Gadaffi is all too well known in Ireland. He supplied the Provisional IRA with weapons which enabled them to carry on their campaign of violence for decades. He did not confine his sponsorship of terrorism to Ireland. During his 34 years as dictator of Libya, there have been numerous Libyan-backed atrocities. The most notorious was Lockerbie 15 years ago. More troubling still was his development of weapons of mass destruction. He is believed to have used mustard gas in neighbouring Chad, and had scientists working on a nuclear weapon. Even after he accepted responsibility for Lockerbie and paid...

· Gadaffi joined war on terror to lift crippling sanctions· Expelled envoy led talks on banned arms programmes Libya provided detailed intelligence on hundreds of al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists as part of a deal to end its isolation as a pariah nation, The Observer can reveal. The disclosure came as Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush yesterday celebrated a diplomatic triumph following Friday night's dramatic announcement that Libya had renounced its weapons of mass destruction programme. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw praised the Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gadaffi for his 'huge statesmanship' in striking the deal over...

<p>CHESAPEAKE, Virginia (CNN) -- Several dozen jailhouse sketches by accused sniper Lee Boyd Malvo -- some depicting police in rifle crosshairs and others containing references to a holy war -- have been entered as evidence by defense attorneys, who say they are evidence of his indoctrination by an accomplice.</p>

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is coming in from the cold Libya is exchanging intelligence about the al-Qaeda network with the United States, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has said. Colonel Gaddafi said there were what he called Libyan terrorists in the US and Britain, and they should be "wiped out". Osama Bin Laden is regarded as a prophet by many Muslims and has convinced his followers that the US is attacking the whole Islamic world, the Libyan leader tells Newsweek magazine in an interview. Colonel Gaddafi - who himself has been accused of sponsoring international terrorism - said there had been assassination...

Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot Martin Bright, home affairs editor Sunday November 10, 2002 The Observer British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'. The...

LIBYA’S first beauty contest, to be hosted next month by Colonel Gadaffi, will be unlike any other. The entrants will be discreetly clad in uniforms and T-shirts depicting the father of the nation as a Che Guevara for the 21st century. Less discreetly, Gadaffi’s son, Saiful Islam, acknowledges one other difference from contests in the West. “It’s going to be hard to see their breasts. Arabic clothes are quite heavy,” he said. He sounds disappointed, doesn't he? - IvanThe competition, which appears to be part of a global charm offensive by Gadaffi, gained his approval last week when he sent...

Gadaffi To Head Human Rights Body Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi is to head an international watchdog on human rights. Libya is to be elected chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights - despite its links with terrorism and torture. The move sparked a storm of controversy as it emerged British officials did nothing to block the appointment. Libyan terrorists were responsible for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people, and Gadaffi's regime has been criticised for violence against its own people. Human rights groups and Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith united to criticise the appointment. But a...

Gadaffi To Head Human Rights Body Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi is to head an international watchdog on human rights.Libya is to be elected chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights - despite its links with terrorism and torture.The move sparked a storm of controversy as it emerged British officials did nothing to block the appointment.Libyan terrorists were responsible for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people, and Gadaffi's regime has been criticised for violence against its own people.IsolateHuman rights groups and Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith united to criticise the appointment.But a Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "Our...