Colonel Gaddafi knew the Lockerbie bomber was innocent of mass murder but let him go to prison as part of a political “deal”, according to his closest adviser. Daad Sharab, 61, visited Abdelbaset al-Megrahi three times in prison in Scotland and was Gaddafi’s confidante for 22 years.
She took a letter from Barlinnie jail from Megrahi, which he wrote to the King of Jordan in a desperate bid to
be freed. In the end, he agreed to drop his appeal against his life sentence so he could be returned to Libya on health grounds in 2009.
Now, Sharab hopes al-Megrahi’s family may finally find “justice” after the arrest of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, 71, held last year on suspicion of building the bomb which brought down the New York-bound flight just days before Christmas in 1988. But she fears his trial, due to take place in the US, will again implicate Megrahi when she is convinced of his innocence.
A statement from the US Dept of Justice last year claimed Megrahi met Mas’ud in Malta and instructed him to prepare the bomb. The bomb on board Pan Am flight 103 detonated over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, and killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground.
It is the worst aviation disaster and terrorist attack in British history. Speaking from her home in Jordan, Sharab said: “I believe Megrahi was framed. He fulfilled his commitment to Gaddafi and went to trial even though he knew he was innocent.
“Gaddafi made a deal with the British then to lift the sanctions and that freed up the Libyan economy again. The letter to the King of Jordan was delivered by me but it did not achieve anything. There was nothing he could do.”
She claims Gaddafi “could not release information” which would have proven that Megrahi was innocent. Gaddafi was considering taking legal action against Britain to get the sanctions lifted before Megrahi faced trial 23 years ago.
But the Libyan leader knew “he had little chance of winning”, according to Sharab, “so he made a political deal to lift the sanctions and that involved Megrahi.”
Sharab worked for the man dubbed “Mad Dog” by President Ronald Reagan after meeting him in the late 80s. But she trusted him and admired him as a friend, investing millions of pounds of Libya’s money on his behalf, earning $1million in commission.
She became a trusted advisor and was tasked with visiting Megrahi, first in Barlinnie, then Greenock prison. She found a man surrounded by his own legal papers, working on his appeal against his minimum 27-year life term for the murder of 170 people imposed in 2001.
He was paranoid about being attacked behind bars, believed he might have been “injected” before his cancer diagnosis and reluctant to accept the deal for his release because it meant he had to drop his appeal against conviction. Sharab recalled: “He told me he kept asking his guards to close his cell door because he was afraid someone might get to him.
“He thought that if they caught him alone, they might beat him and murder him. He had been in good health, he feared that he had been injected with something to give him cancer.
“He did not have to hand himself in to the courts. But he felt that he had to for his country and for Gaddafi.”
Libya opened a special consulate in Glasgow for Megrahi and his family. “They moved to Scotland for a while to be with him,” added Sharab.
“But they did not feel safe so they went back to Libya. They were also fearful of being attacked. He was not the bomber, I believe that. I was not an official, I did not work for the government, so Megrahi had no reason to lie to me.
“Gaddafi himself told me that it was not Libya who did it but Syria and Iran. And I think the British knew that but, at the time, they needed Iran and Syria because of the Gulf War.”
Britain and the US initially claimed Iran commissioned the attack on the Pan Am flight using the Palestinian guerrilla group PFLP (GC), based in Damascus, in retaliation for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the US. That changed after the first Gulf War when Syria joined the US-sponsored coalition against Saddam Hussein and Libya was blamed.
Relatives of those killed in the bombing brought a lawsuit against the Libyan government, demanding the then ruling regime be held accountable. Gaddafi agreed to a settlement in 2003, formally accepting responsibility for the bombing and paying compensation to the families.
But some bereaved relatives were convinced that the conviction of Megrahi was wrong. Grounds for appeal were later established in Scotland but his appeal denied. A specially constituted Scottish court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands saw the two men were charged with what amounted to joint enterprise. Fhimah was freed while Megrahi was convicted.
He died at the age of 60 after serving just eight-and-a-half-years of his life sentence, protesting his innocence to the very end. Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora, travelled to Tripoli to see him before he died.
He said: “I went into court thinking I was going to see the trial of those who were responsible for the murder of my daughter. I came out thinking he had been framed.
“I am very afraid that we saw steps taken to ensure a politically desired result was obtained.” The key evidence against him was based on testimony from Maltese shop owner Tony Gauci, who died in 2016 aged 75.
He said he recognised Megrahi and he had purchased an item of clothing found in the suitcase carrying the bomb. Megrahi wrote in his letter to the King of Jordan: “I have never in my life bought any clothes from any store in Malta. I have never seen the clothes, nor the storekeeper in my life except during the trial when the witness presented his deposition.
“I have never dealt in my life with a suitcase that contains an offence at any airport in the world. My presence at Malta, if it were really the beginning of this crime, as claimed by the allegation, was merely to get some necessities.”
Sharab fell out with Gaddafi and was held prisoner for 19 months in a villa, fearing execution. Libya intelligence officers became jealous of her influence and poisoned him against her, including accusing her of being Gaddafi’s lover, which she denies. She miraculously escaped amid the Arab Spring uprising of 2011 as Libyans revolted against Gaddafi’s regime.
He was captured and killed by his own people. Sharab, who has written a book about her time working with Colonel Gaddafi, settled back in her native Jordan.
“There is going to be a new trial of a man accused of making the Lockerbie bomb which is extraordinary after all this time,” she said.
“It may be that Meghari will be cleared sometime in the future. I believe Gaddafi would have told me if Libya was behind the attack. He was not the kind of person to deny that, to lie about it, he would have said.
“I think it would be only right if they were to clear al Megrahi’s name now, for his family, all the families of the victims, that is what I want.”
The Colonel and I: My Life with Gaddafi, by Daad Sharab, published by Pen & Sword Military, is available on Amazon.
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