Libya Deal on Lockerbie Trial May Be Near

CAIRO —  Libya announced Saturday that there has been a breakthrough in talks over the proposed trial in the Netherlands of two Libyans accused of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, a crime that killed 270 people near Lockerbie, Scotland, 10 years ago.

If confirmed, an agreement would permit two Libyan suspects long sought by the United States and Britain to be turned over to the United Nations and then transferred to the Netherlands, where they would be put on trial under Scottish law before a Scottish three-judge panel.

The United States and Britain first proposed such a trial to resolve the Lockerbie case in August, but Libya had resisted because of U.S.-British plans to imprison the two suspects in Scotland if they were found guilty.

Now, as a result of the latest mediation effort by Saudi Arabia and South Africa, Libya apparently has accepted that the two can be imprisoned in Scotland, said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The agreement comes after the British Foreign Office said Friday that U.N. monitors could be allowed in the prison to ensure that the suspects, if found guilty, are not mistreated.

“Positive results have been achieved concerning reaching a solution of the so-called Lockerbie case,” the official Libyan news agency Jana reported, without giving details.

The Libyan statement said the turnover of the two suspects--Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah--should lead to the lifting of 7-year-old U.N. sanctions on Libya that ban air travel to and from Libya and limit the sale of oil equipment.

The French news agency Agence France-Presse quoted unnamed Western diplomats as saying that Annan will draft a letter to Libya setting out the exact terms and details of the agreement. A copy will be shown to the U.N. Security Council, including the United States and Britain, to guarantee that all sides are in accord.

The letter is expected to be finished by Tuesday, the agency said.

Eliminating the sanctions is the main incentive for Libya to proceed with the deal.

Libya has been struggling to undo the sanctions for years and has even succeeded in persuading several African heads of state to disobey the Security Council and unilaterally violate the ban on air travel to Libya.

The United States and Britain, meanwhile, have been concerned about dwindling international support for sanctions against Libya, especially from Arab and African nations.

Belief that the sanctions might be crumbling, and impatience that the two suspects might never be brought to trial, prompted the unusual offer in August to allow the pair to be tried in the neutral venue of the Netherlands.

The Security Council agreed in September that the sanctions could be suspended as soon as Annan certified that the two men had been turned over.

The Saudi and South African mediators expressed optimism that an agreement had been all but reached.

“Positive results in the Lockerbie case are close by,” the official Saudi Press Agency quoted Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, as saying.

Bandar traveled to Libya this month, along with Jakes Gerwel, a top aide to South African President Nelson Mandela, to try to persuade Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi to relinquish the suspects.

Gerwel said in Cape Town, South Africa, that “a common understanding was reached on all outstanding issues in this matter.”

At the United Nations, Annan said in a statement that he is “greatly encouraged by the important progress toward resolving the Lockerbie issue.”

Annan said he is “looking forward to the speedy conclusion of this matter.”

On Friday, Annan was briefed on the mediation results by Rihab Massoud, the deputy chief of mission at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington.

Annan traveled to Libya in December and met with Kadafi in a tent in the desert.

At the time, hopes were high that an agreement could be reached promptly.

Annan said Libya had “confirmed its seriousness and readiness to find a solution to the Lockerbie problem.”

But the secretary-general returned with the knowledge that outstanding issues remained, and he asked South Africa and Saudi Arabia to help him mediate the dispute.

After Annan briefed the Security Council on his December mission, British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock stressed that the patience of many council members was wearing thin and that they desired a speedy conclusion to the affair.

The council had been scheduled to take up Lockerbie at its meeting Feb. 27, with U.S. and British governments threatening to toughen the sanctions against Libya unless the suspects were produced by then.

Despite the Saudi and South African mediators’ optimism, U.S. officials remained outwardly skeptical Saturday.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said: “Obviously we’ll wait and see how this develops in the coming days. Libya’s responsibility remains to turn over these suspects for transport to the Netherlands for a trial that is long overdue.”

State Department spokesman James Foley said the only proof of an agreement would be “the actual transfer of the prisoners to the secretary-general.”

Of the 270 people killed in December 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, 189 were Americans. All 259 people aboard the plane died, and 11 people were killed on the ground.

U.S. investigators say the explosion resulted from a bomb hidden in luggage that was put aboard the flight during a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany.

The explosion, one of the worst terrorist attacks in history, led to a tightening of security procedures for luggage handling at airports around the world.

Times staff writer John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.