US should indict Gaddafi for mass murder at Lockerbie

Nile Gardiner:

For all his defiant talk today of dying as a “martyr”, you can be sure that Colonel Gaddafi is making feverish plans to flee Libya and live in exile in the lap of luxury in whatever despotic country that takes him – Cuba and Venezuela are early contenders. Clearly the Butcher of Tripoli’s days are numbered as Libya’s leader, and his regime may not even last the week. His security forces have already massacred hundreds of protesters in the past few days on the streets of the capital as well as Libya’s second city, Benghazi. In a final act of tyrannical desperation, he is now threatening to crush the protests “like Tiananmen.”

If he gets out of Libya alive, Gaddafi should not be permitted to enjoy freedom abroad, and Washington can play a lead role in ensuring he doesn’t. The United States should make every effort to ensure that he faces justice for the mass murder of 189 Americans on board PanAm Flight 103, blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, an atrocity carried out by Libyan intelligence agents on his orders. The Justice Department should issue an indictment against Gaddafi for his role in the Lockerbie bombing as soon as he is removed from power, and request his extradition to the United States from whatever jurisdiction he lands in.

The families of the victims of Lockerbie deserve to see American justice served against the man who callously ordered the murder of their loved ones. They recently suffered the indignity of seeing convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi freed from a Scottish prison in a shameful deal between Libyan and Scottish authorities with the complicity of the Labour government in London. They must now be given the opportunity to see the mastermind of Lockerbie face trial on American soil.

...
I am not a big fan of lawfare, although I might make an exception for this guy. I would also not be opposed to sending him to Gitmo and letting a military tribunal deal with a war crimes indictment. 

Update:  The AP is reporting that a former Libyan official is now saying Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

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