Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, right front, is accompanied a delegation including Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, on his arrival in Tripoli on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – A month before Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi plans to visit the U.S. for the first time, his regime Thursday ignored President Obama’s direct appeal not to give the Libyan convicted for his role in the Lockerbie bombing a hero’s welcome on his return to Tripoli.
 
Former intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, freed by the Scottish authorities on compassionate grounds after serving just eight years of a life sentence, was flown home on Gaddafi’s jet, accompanied by Gaddafi’s son and possible heir.
 
In Tripoli, he was greeted on his arrival Thursday evening by thousands of jubilant Libyans. Patriotic music played, flower petals were thrown. Some in the celebratory crowd wore t-shirts bearing Megrahi’s picture, and Libyan and Scottish flags were waved.
 
“I have never been ashamed to see my country’s flag waved before, but to see it misused to celebrate mass murder is outrageous,” said Russell Brown, a Labor Party lawmaker whose constituency lies near Lockerbie.
 
In a statement issued by his lawyer after his departure from Scotland, Megrahi – who specialists say has terminal prostate cancer and will die soon – said he was innocent of the1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
 
“To those victims’ relatives who can bear to hear me say this, they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered,” said Megrahi, who throughout his 84-day trial in 2000-2001 denied guilt.
 
Two hundred and seventy people in the New York-bound plane and on the ground were killed in the atrocity, 189 of them Americans.


President Obama meets Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy on Thursday July 9, 2009. Gaddafi attended as chairman of the African Union. (AP Photo)
Top Obama administration officials had unsuccessfully urged the British government and Scottish authorities not to release Megrahi early. (Scotland has a devolved government, led by the Scottish National Party. Britain’s main political parties condemned the move, which official opposition Conservative leader David Cameron called “a very bad decision.”)
 
Scottish justice secretary Kenneth MacAskill, who approved the release, said in Edinburgh that “Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power. It is terminal, final and irrevocable.”
 
“Let’s accept the justice minister’s rationale here that this was, in his mind, an act of compassion,” Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley told a State Department press briefing. “We are a compassionate people in the United States. We just don’t believe in this particular case, or in the case of terrorism, that compassion should overrule justice.”
 
Obama said during a radio interview Thursday that freeing Megrahi was a “mistake.”
 
The U.S. was in touch with the Libyan government, the president added, to ensure “that he’s not welcomed back in some way, but instead, should be under house arrest.” The White House said the message had been delivered through the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.
 
“We have said to the Libyan officials quite clearly that he is not entitled to a hero’s welcome,” Crowley explained.
 
He indicated that Libya’s stance would affect bilateral ties that have improved significantly in recent years.
 
“Clearly, what happens when he returns to Libya will have an influence on the future direction of our relationship,” Crowley said.
 
Rehabilitation
 
Libya’s rehabilitation from pariah status has been extraordinary. U.N. and U.S. sanctions have been lifted, diplomatic isolation ended – an American ambassador took up post in Tripoli early this year for the first time in 36 years – and European leaders regularly visit while Western oil companies pursue lucrative energy contracts.
 
Just a week ago, Gaddafi hosted a delegation of U.S. members of Congress, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who noted that bilateral ties “have taken a remarkable and positive turn in recent years” but also called human rights and political reform issues of continuing concern.  The delegation discussed the sale of non-lethal weaponry to Tripoli.


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets Libyan national security advisor Mutassim Gaddafi, one of the Libyan leader’s sons, at the State Department on April 21, 2009. (State Department photo by Michael Gross)
(McCain and fellow delegation members Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), currently in Afghanistan, said in a statement Thursday they were “deeply disappointed” about the Megrahi decision.
 
“During our meeting with Libyan leaders, including Colonel Gaddafi, we expressed our strong opposition to Megrahi’s release and warned of possible damage to the growing bilateral ties between the United States and Libya,” they said. “We also made clear that, should Megrahi be released, the Libyan government should handle his return in a fashion that strengthens the growing ties of friendship between our two peoples, rather than undermines it.”)
 
Gaddafi now chairs the African Union (A.U.) and in that capacity attended the G8 summit last month in Italy, where he shook hands with Obama.
 
Next month he plans to pay his first visit to the U.S. for the opening of the annual U.N. General Assembly session, which will be presided over by a Libyan diplomat and former foreign minister. As A.U. president, Gaddafi is scheduled to speak immediately after Obama.
 
Among leaders joining Gaddafi at this year’s event in New York City will be Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.