Lockerbie compensation was 'business initiative'

A Libyan businessman who helped arrange a £1.8bn (€2.8bn) compensation deal with the families of Pan Am 103 victims said today he was acting on behalf of the Libyan business sector that wants to see UN sanctions lifted.

A Libyan businessman who helped arrange a £1.8bn (€2.8bn) compensation deal with the families of Pan Am 103 victims said today he was acting on behalf of the Libyan business sector that wants to see UN sanctions lifted.

‘‘It was very clear that we represented the Libyan economic structures that will benefit from the lifting of the sanctions,’’ said Mohammed Abdel-Jawad, a prominent businessman who led the Libyan negotiating team.

James Kreindler, a partner in the New York-based legal firm that had been negotiating the case with the Libyans for 11 months, also said the Libyan team was acting on behalf of the legal and business sectors in Libya but that they were clearly authorised to negotiate.

‘‘From our point of view, the distinction the Libyan delegation and the Libyan government made is not an impediment to settling the case,’’ Kreindler, of the Kreindler & Kreindler family law firm, said in New York.

News of the agreement emerged last week when lawyers representing the American families announced in the United States that the Libyan government has offered to pay dlrs 10 million per family to be disbursed as the US takes clearly defined steps toward ending its attempts to isolate Libya.

Last week, Libya’s mission to the United Nations denied the Libyan government was involved.

Libya’s negotiating team consisted of a member of the Libyan Supreme Court, an international law professor and Abdel-Jawad.

Kreindler said the Libyans were not ‘‘retracting’’ on the deal. ‘‘The deal is going forward,’’ he said.

Oil-rich Libya has been held responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, which claimed 270 lives. A Scottish Court convicted a Libyan intelligence agent for the massacre last year.

The UN Security Council has demanded that Libya compensates families of the victims.

Libya is also required to admit responsibility for the bombing, renounce terrorism and disclose all information it has about the bombing.

Once the Security Council is satisfied that these conditions are met, UN sanctions that were suspended several years ago can be lifted.

Abdel-Jawad, 60, said the team acted out of economic interests and had no authorisation from the government.

He said the US lawyers might have suspected the government was involved because of the relations he had had previously with the government.

Abdel-Jawad was a co-founder of Libya’s only bank dealing in foreign currency, Libya’s Exterior Bank, which he headed for 10 years.

He was also a co-founder of the Libyan Company for Foreign Investment, the government’s investment agency, and headed a number of Libyan companies in Europe.

He apparently left the government sector in November 2001 to join the private sector. Kreindler said Abdel-Jawad joined the negotiations well after they started in June 2001.

Under the agreement announced last week, the compensation money would be released piecemeal as sanctions against Libya were revoked: 40% when sanctions were lifted, 40% with removal of US commercial sanctions and 20% after Libya had been removed from the State Department’s list of sponsors of international terror.

Kreindler said he believe the families could receive the first 40% as early as this summer, assuming Libya complies with UN Security Council demands.

When asked who will contribute to the fund, Abdel-Jawad said the fund will be open to all those who will benefit from the lifting of sanctions.

‘‘This fund will be greatly welcomed by all companies who want to enter the Libyan market, including American companies and (Libyan) businessmen who were greatly harmed by American sanctions,’’ he said.

He said the government would also benefit from the lifting of sanctions, but did not say if it will contribute to the fund.

It is like ‘‘buying a licence’’ for the entry into the world market, he said. ‘‘The licence has a price and it has returns,’’ he said.

Kreindler said he had no idea how the Libyans were assembling the settlement money, and that did not concern him.

Abdel Jawad said the deal was not finalised until the families of the victims and the US and Libyan governments approved it, but that he was optimistic.

The US administration has said the deal is not the only step needed for the lifting of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi’s country.

The administration is recommending neither that families accept nor reject the offer, which was negotiated ‘‘lawyer to lawyer’’ without State Department involvement, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last week.

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