Libya has nothing to hide, insists Gaddafi

MUAMMAR GADDAFI invited the world to come to Libya to see for itself that Tripoli was not concealing banned weapons, after promising that the country was abandoning its atomic bomb programme.

“Come and see... We don’t want to hide anything,” the Libyan leader told CNN in an interview broadcast yesterday.

Libyan and UN officials said checks of nuclear sites could begin next week after Tripoli accepted UN inspections.

Gaddafi’s oil-rich state, on the US list of sponsors of terrorism, said last week it was abandoning plans to build weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It now wants trade benefits, including an end to US sanctions.

“We have no intention to make these weapons, these WMD. But there are rumours, accusations, (much) propaganda against Libya and we have to stop this,” he said in English in the interview, which CNN said was conducted in a Bedouin tent outside the capital.

For much of Gaddafi’s 34-year rule, Libya has been under US or UN sanctions, accused of sponsoring or carrying out terrorist acts, from bombing airliners to training foreign guerrillas.

UN sanctions were lifted this year after Libya agreed to pay compensation for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, which killed 270 people.