Tag Archives: jack strraw

Davey: ministers seem prepared to have given Gaddafi anything he wanted

By Stephen Tall | Sun 13th September 2009 - 4:00 pm

Yesterday’s Times revealed that Jack Straw signed a secret deal with Libya three years ago guaranteeing the Libyan killer of a British policewoman will never be brought to justice in Britain:

The Libyan killer of a British policewoman will never be brought to justice in Britain after a secret deal approved by Jack Straw. The Foreign Office bowed to Libyan pressure and agreed that Britain would abandon any attempt to try the murderer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, shot outside the Libyan embassy in London 25 years ago.

Anthony Layden, Britain’s former ambassador to Libya, said this weekend he had signed the agreement with the Libyan government three years ago, when Straw was foreign secretary. At the time Britain was negotiating trade deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds with Libya.

The deal followed a visit by Tony Blair, then prime minister, to meet Colonel Gadaffi in March 2004 after Libya announced that it was ending its nuclear weapons programme. The disclosure will provoke criticism of the government after the row over the early release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber.

Lib Dem shadow foreign secretary Ed Davey has condemned the move: