Abu Agila Masud extradition to US for Lockerbie bomb causes IRA semtex compensation campaigner to allege nuclear deal between Tony Blair and Muammar Gaddafi

The former Libyan dictator Col Gaddafi supplied the IRA with 120 tonnes of weaponry during the Troubles, including shipments of deadly Semtex explosives.

As a result, 150 victims of subsequent IRA bombings are seeking £353m damages from oil-rich Libya, in line with that already paid to Libyan terror victims in France, Germany and the US.The man who allegedly built the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 finally appeared in a US court to be charged with the atrocity last week.

The Lockerbie attack killed 270 people - 190 of whom were American citizens.

As a result the US government worked for over 30 years to finally have Libya extradite its ex-intelligence agent Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi to stand trial.

Many US victims of Libyan terrorism have already been paid $5m each by the north African state, with similar amounts paid to French and German victims.

However UK victims of IRA bombs made with Libyan supplied Semtex have repeatedly accused the UK government of taking a wholly passive stance on compensation for them.

Victims campaigner Jonathan Ganesh, who still carries serious injuries from the 1996 IRA bombing of Canary Wharf, said the contrast between the attitudes of the American and UK government towards their own victims is "terrible".

"The Americans are holding these people to account now for Lockerbie - 32 years after the attack.

"But Al-Marimi and Gaddafi and these people were also involved in terrorism through supplying weapons and Semtex to the IRA.

So what about our government? I wrote to the new Prime Minister a few weeks ago and asked him what he was going to do about all this. This story hasn't gone away

"We are the only country where we tell our own victims - you have got to resolve it with Libya yourself. It is terrible."

In 2019 Westminster's powerful NI Affairs Committee recommended the UK government press Libya directly for the compensation, which it unusually refused to do.

UUP Peer Lord Empey has campaigned for compensation for the victims for years and believes he knows why.

"While I have no concrete evidence to back up what I think, I feel that this all goes back to a deal done between [Tony] Blair and Gaddafi which was backed by the US," he said. "I feel the deal was that Gaddafi would not try and develop nuclear weapons in return for the Libyan economy being opened up and getting access to foreign investment. I can think of nothing else that explains UK government policy on this matter."

A UK Government spokesperson said: “The UK Government has profound sympathy for UK victims of Qadhafi-sponsored IRA terrorism, and for all victims of The Troubles.

“Providing compensation specifically for the actions of the Qadhafi regime, separate from the support available to victims of the Troubles, is the responsibility of the Libyan State.“We will continue to press the Libyan authorities to address the Libyan State’s historic responsibility for the Qadhafi regime’s support for the IRA.”