UN releases Secretary-General's letter on Lockerbie trial
25 August -- The United Nations today released the letter that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had sent to Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi in February of last year explaining the terms of the Lockerbie trial.

The UN made the letter public after the defence team for the two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing trial had requested the United Kingdom authorities to release the document. On Tuesday, the Secretary-General sent a copy of the requested letter to the UK Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock. Today, both the United Kingdom and the United States Governments made the letter, along with the Secretary-General's cover letter to Ambassador Greenstock, public.

In his cover letter to Ambassador Greenstock, the Secretary-General wrote that "in view of the exceptional circumstances in the present case, in particular the request of the defence team and the fact that Security Council resolution 1192 (1998) calls upon all States to cooperate with the Scottish Court sitting in the Netherlands, I have no objection to the release of the letter as requested."

The 1192 resolution, in part, requested the Secretary-General to assist the Libyan Government with the physical arrangements for the safe transfer of the two accused from Libya to the Netherlands.

The transfer was successfully implemented on 5 April 1999 following lengthy negotiations. During the process, the Libyan authorities sought clarifications regarding various issues, which were conveyed to the Governments concerned, according to Mr. Annan's cover letter. In it, he stresses that the United Kingdom and the United States were both apprised of the February 1999 communication and "confirmed that they shared the understanding reflected in its annex."

Commenting on circumstances of the release, the UN Legal Counsel, Hans Corell, told the press at UN Headquarters in New York that the letter had not been previously made public because of the Secretary-General's prerogative to be able to correspond confidentially with the leaders of Member States.

Mr. Corell emphasized that the Secretary-General's role was to assist in transferring the two Libyans from Tripoli to the Netherlands. "The exercise developed into an exchange of information between the Libyans and the delegations of the other countries involved," he said, stressing that the Secretary-General "was not involved in any way in the formulation of the messages that came from the capitals."

Asked to clarify the sentence in the annex that the two persons would not be used to "undermine the Libyan regime," Mr. Corell said that it was not for him to explain the sentence. It was information given by the countries involved to the Libyan authorities, he noted, and the role of the Secretary-General was to convey information. "That is very clear from the letter."

The Lockerbie crisis was precipitated on 21 December 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed over the small Scottish town bearing that name. All 259 passengers and crew on the plane were killed, along with 11 people on the ground.