Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s administration may seek to prosecute Libyan leader Moammar al Gadhafi for the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, according to an article on msnbc.com published Tuesday.

All 259 passengers on board the plane died in the bombing, as well as 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. Thirty-five of the victims were Syracuse University students traveling back to the United States from studying abroad in London and Florence. Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the only one convicted for the bombing.

Clinton’s response came during a budget hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs when U.S. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-Onondaga Hill) asked what the United States is doing to investigate Gadhafi, according to the article. Clinton said former Gadhafi officials have made statements in the past week saying he was responsible for the bombing and that the United States would ‘move expeditiously,’ according to the article.

On Feb. 23, Libya’s former justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil told the Stockholm-based tabloid Expressen that Gadhafi personally ordered the bombing, although he provided no proof to back up his accusation. Gadhafi has controlled Libya since a 1969 military overthrow and has never admitted to ordering the bombing but previously accepted Libya’s responsibility for the attack.

The former Libyan justice minister Abdel-Jalil was quoted over the weekend as saying the convicted bomber had blackmailed Gadhafi into granting his release from a Scottish prison by threatening to expose Gadhafi’s role in the bombing, according to the article.

The Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom quoted Abdel-Jalil as saying al-Megrahi had threatened Gadhafi that he would ‘reveal everything’ regarding the bombing if he wasn’t rescued from prison, according to the article.

Clinton said the case against Gadhafi was personally important to her as a former New York state senator, according to the article.

Clinton said she would contact FBI Director Robert Mueller and U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder about how to move forward with the investigation, according to the article. If evidence is found that Gadhafi ordered the attack, Clinton said it would be one of several counts brought against him in the International Criminal Court ‘if he is ever captured alive for justice proceedings,’ according to the article.

Al-Megrahi was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and told by doctors he had only three months to live. He is still alive, and controversy continues to surround his release.

— Compiled by Jon Harris, asst. news editor, jdharr04@syr.edu

 

Published on March 1, 2011 at 12:00 pm

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