Gaddafi regrets Reagan didn't stand trial

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi expressed regret today that former US President Ronald Reagan died without ever standing trial for 1986 air strikes he ordered that killed the Libyan leader’s adopted daughter and 36 other people.

Reagan ordered the air raid on April 15, 1986, in response to a disco bombing in Berlin allegedly ordered by Gaddafi that killed two US soldiers and a Turkish woman and injured 229 people.

Libya’s official JANA news agency quoted Gaddafi as saying: “I express my deep regret because Reagan died before facing justice for his ugly crime that he committed in 1986 against the Libyan children”.

The United States branded Libya a rogue state in the 1980s, alleging state-sponsored support of terrorism and imposing trade sanctions on the country in 1986.

Only in the past year have relations warmed substantially, with Libya meeting US demands stemming from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

A Libyan agent was convicted of involvement in the bombing and Libya agreed to pay compensation to the families of the 270 victims.

Gaddafi agreed in December to dismantle Libya’s biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs, and in February, Washington lifted a ban on the use of US passports to travel to Libya.

In April, US President George Bush took steps toward restoring trade and investment ties with Libya, allowing the resumption of oil imports and most commercial and financial activities.

But the United States continues to list Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism, which prohibits US aid or arms sales to the country, and hundreds of millions of dollars of Libyan assets remain frozen in US banks.

These restrictions are seen as an inducement for Libya to resolve its remaining differences with Washington.

Gaddafi was not alone in looking back on Reagan’s administration as a dark period.

The Reagan years marked the beginning of what Lebanon’s culture minister, Ghazi Aridi, called a “bad era” of American Middle East policy that continues to this day.

Mr Aridi noted the Reagan administration’s support of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which ended in May 2000, and that current US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also served under Reagan.

“Rumsfeld was part of Reagan’s administration, this means that his policy is still going on,” said Mr Aridi, who is with the Druse Progressive Socialist Party.

Areas controlled by the party came under heavy American shelling by the US destroyer New Jersey in 1983.

“In Reagan’s days, the destroyer New Jersey bombed poor areas of Mount Lebanon, the Americans protected Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and joined the Israelis in imposing the May 17 agreements,” Mr Aridi said.

In Syria, which has had tense relations with the US for decades, political analyst and former Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Haitham al-Kilani said: “Reagan’s role was bad for the Arab-Israeli conflict and was specifically against Syria.

“He was the victim of the Israeli right wing that was, and still is, dominating the White House.”