Andrew Rosindell MP slams belated release of William Shawcross Report on Gaddafi-IRA compensation from Libya
A leading MP says victims of Gaddafi-IRA terrorism have been ‘stifled with lies and duplicity’ after a secret report showed the government has been hiding advice to compensate them for their trauma.
Andrew Rosindell MP, chairman of the Chairman of the Libyan-IRA Terrorism Victims’ Parliamentary Support Group, was speaking after the Government published a small portion of a report commissioned by the 2020 Government on how to deal with the issue of compensating the victims.
Libyan leader Col Gaddafi supplied repeated shipments of weapons to the IRA during the Troubles.
Previously the government commissioned Sir William Shawcross to compile a report on compensating victims of the weaponry.
However successive governments refused to publish the report – completed in 2020. On Monday night it published the the Executive Summary and Conclusion.
Mr Rosindell said the partial release of the report – written by Sir William Shawcross – is “a landmark in the long and painful journey for justice by the victims”.
He said: “It is clear from the report that Sir William Shawcross believed that it was the responsibility of His Majesty’s Government to provide a scheme of compensation, even if funding could not be directly obtained from the Libyan government.”
He also noted the report said compensation could easily be provided using tax collected frozen Libyan assets in the UK, which he said had been “the long-standing position of our group”.
He added: “The campaign was consistently told by consecutive governments that such a solution would be unworkable, illegitimate, and even unlawful. Today, we discover that this was in fact one of the potential options highlighted by Sir William in the internal report commissioned by and for the government.”
They have waited “far too long for justice” he said, adding that “their voices have been stifled with lies and duplicity”.
Lawyers at law firm McCue Jury and Partners – who led the civil action against the Omagh bombers – are seeking compensation from Libya for 150 victims impacted by Semtex it supplied to the IRA.
Senior partner Jason McCue said the families they are acting for now have a lot of questions to ask.
He added: “We’re urging the government to publish the full report, so that victims and the public can see what is being withheld.
“From the little that has been released, it’s hard to avoid the impression that victims were not failed by law, but by bureaucracy. It is clear that decisions were made about victims, not with them. That cannot be right.”
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