Despite its desire to obtain the extradition of two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie attack, the United Kingdom had opposed economic reasons for Gaddafi’s broadening of UN sanctions against Libya. Government documents expired on Wednesday, 30 December.

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The UN Security Council imposed a number of sanctions on Libya in 1992, which refused to extradite two Libyans from the United Kingdom or the United States as Libya’s origin. In 1988, an American aircraft bombed over the Scottish city of Lockerbie. The attack killed all 259 passengers and crew, as well as eleven people on the ground, making it the deadliest attack ever on British soil.

But when US President Bill Clinton called for Britain to support in 1995 to extend these UN sanctions, British-Prime Minister John Major wrote to him to refuse. A series of letters from 1995 and 1996, announced on Wednesday by the British National Archives, show that his government was concerned about the economic impact of the expansion of the sanctions.

“extremely opposing”

“The Foreign Minister has decided that we should not support the United States in his view”., We can read in a letter from his secretary, who invites “extremely opposing” Of “Ministry of Commerce and Commerce”. “This would have a direct impact on UK exports to Libya, which rose to over £ 230m in 1995, of which around £ 100m belonged to the oil sector.”, He announced.

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At the time, the British government believed that further sanctions would not change the Libyan leader’s humiliation for his citizens. “We want to try the two accused and convict them”In a letter to the secretary of John Major, an Foreign Ministry official was exposed, “But there is a small chance that Gaddafi will hand them over”.

Clinton finally signed an American law banning foreign companies investing heavily in Libya in August 1996. In 1999, Gaddafi handed over two suspects and one of them, Abdelbasset Mohammed al-Meghi, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001, claiming his innocence until his death in 2012. His family has since moved criminal appeals to the Supreme Court of Scotland and is awaiting the decision for this posthumous appeal.