Scottish police and prosecutors are expected today to conduct face-to-face interviews with the man who could throw crucial new evidence on the Lockerbie bombing.
They are in London to interview Colonel Gaddafi’s former right hand man, Libyan defector Moussa Koussa, in a bid to uncover the truth about Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity.
Detectives from Dumfries and Galloway police and officials from the Crown Office travelled to London in the hope that Mr Koussa could provide them with a vital breakthrough in the mass murder hunt.
Sources close to the investigation indicated that the officers are expecting to be given immediate access to Libya’s former Foreign Minister. “We are fully expecting the interview to take place today. The Crown Office wasted no time in making a request to speak to Moussa Koussa and the Foreign Office have responded very positively. We have been told that it is very likely the interview will actually take place today,” said the source.
Investigators probing the bombing of Pan AM flight 103 in December 1988 believe that Mr Koussa, who was Libya’s senior intelligence officer at the time of the attack, could provide crucial information in the hunt for those responsible.
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So far, only one man, Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi has been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people lost their lives. He is now back in Libya after being freed from Greenock prison in 2009 on compassionate release after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
The Crown Office has always maintained that al-Megrahi did not act alone and the Lockerbie investigation has remained open. The Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, recently expressed hope that the collapse of the Gaddafi regime could provide crucial new information in the Lockerbie investigation.
The defection of the country’s former Foreign Minister represents the most significant development in the case since al-Megrahi’s conviction.
David Cameron has made it clear that Mr Koussa has not been granted immunity from prosecution in return for his defection. Both the Prime Minister and the First Minister Alex Salmond last week stressed that the Libyan defector is not being treated as a suspect.
Mr Salmond claimed: “There is every reason to believe that this individual can shed light on the Lockerbie atrocity and the circumstances which led up to it”.
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Mr Koussa has been one the most influential members of Colonel Gaddafi’s inner circle over the past 30 years. He fled to Britain last week fearing that he would be killed by rebel forces or die in a coalition attack.
The man known as Colonel Gaddafi’s “envoy of death” has been staying under guard at an MI6 safe house in the south of England.
The team of Scottish police officers and prosecutors will meet Foreign Office representatives in Whitehall this morning ahead of the interview with Mr Koussa.
Meanwhile the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has been criticised for attending a party fundraiser in Scotland the day after Mr Koussa defected.
Mr Hague was in Edinburgh last week to speak to a dinner organised by Conservative business group Fresh Start.
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Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Johann Lamont, called the timing of the visit “a profound error of judgment”. She said: “On the very day the Libyan spymaster defects, you’d have thought the Foreign Secretary would have better things to do than raise money on a cloak and dagger mission in Edinburgh. British personnel were in action in the skies over Libya as he dined.”
The SNP MP Angus Robertson also questioned Mr Hague’s judgment, and called for more details to be released about the Fresh Start group itself.
Mr Robertson said: “With a serious defection from Libya that day and British personnel in active service, I cannot believe that William Hague thought a fundraising dinner in Edinburgh was more important than his duties at the Foreign Office.”