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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 22 June 2018:
The British government is not seeking to use frozen Libyan assets in the UK to compensate IRA victims, Britain’s ambassador to Libya Frank Baker was reported as saying.
The reports came after two separate meeting held by Baker in Tripoli with Libya’s Presidency Council and the High State Council on Wednesday.
During the meeting with Presidency Council member Ahmed Maetig, Baker was reported to have stressed that his Government had made no proposal on this issue, and that the House of Commons debate on the matter was postponed until next October. Baker had explained that some members of the House of Commons representing Northern Ireland are the ones who want to raise the issue of reparations within the House of Commons and not the British Government.
Meanwhile, in his meeting on the same day with Khaled Mishri, head of the High State Council, Baker was reported to have said that only some members of the British House of Commons representing Northern Ireland had talked about raising the amount of compensation without referring to the use of frozen Libyan funds. Baker added that the Members of Parliament concerned were few and that it was difficult to pass such a law.
Baker was further reported as saying that the British government had not made a decision on the issue, and that what was rumoured in public about the British Government’s position is incorrect, adding that the matter should be resolved with the President of the Presidential Council (Faiez Serraj) and his Foreign Minister – without media interference.
Update:
This article was updated on 25 June as the HSC have now retracted the following paragraph attributed to the British ambassador in the original article published on 22 June.
”’adding that those affected by the support of Qaddafi to the Irish Army (IRA) had been compensated during Qaddafi’s time through the USA”.
Meanwhile the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office have added ‘’Seeking justice for the UK victims of Qadhafi-sponsored terrorism continues to be a priority for the UK government. This issue is yet to be resolved.’’
PC rejects British possible use of frozen Libyan assets for IRA compensation
