EU lifts sanctions on Libyan Foreign Minister

The European Union has lifted sanctions against former Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa, the most senior member of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime to have defected.

An EU official says the sanctions, which included a visa ban, were lifted at the request of the UK, where Koussa flew on March 30 to defect.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said that part of the motive was to encourage other Gaddafi insiders to defect.

All 27 EU countries had to agree for the sanctions to be lifted.

The British Foreign Office issued a statement explaining its reasoning.

“Sanctions are introduced to invoke behavioural change and as Musa Kusa has chosen to leave regime he is no longer sanctioned in this way,” the statement said.

Kusa has been blamed for some of Libya’s brutality and credited for some of its diplomatic successes. He was Libya’s chief of intelligence for more than a decade and is privy to all the inner workings of the regime. He has been debriefed thoroughly by British officials.

The Libyan opposition blames him for the assassinations of dissidents in western capitals and for orchestrating the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the bombing of another jet over Niger a year later. The links have never been confirmed.

In later years, Kusa played an important role in persuading Western nations to lift sanctions on Libya and remove its name from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

He led settlements of Lockerbie, offered all information about Libya’s nuclear programme and gave London and Washington information about Islamic militants after the September 11 attacks.