MPs to hear that victims of Libya-backed terrorism were let down by UK government

Libya supplied explosives and weaponry to the IRA during its bombing campaign in 1980s and 1990s

Libya’s former leader Muammar Qaddafi, who died in 2011, backed the IRA with money and arms. Reuters

Victims of Libyan-backed terrorism were forgotten by the UK government in the rush to secure lucrative trade deals with the regime of Muammar Qaddafi, MPs will be told on Thursday.

The head of a prominent victims’ group is expected to criticise what he calls the UK government’s “appalling, preposterous and absurd strategies” to secure compensation from Tripoli over its backing for Irish terrorists during a three-decade struggle against the UK.

Libya supplied explosives, weaponry and training to the Irish Republican Army, which it used to deadly effect during a bombing campaign in England and Northern Ireland during the 1980s and 1990s.

Jonathan Ganesh, who was injured in a 1996 bombing in London by the Provisional IRA, has produced a dossier on behalf of victims after the government refused to publish a report it commissioned into compensation on “national security” grounds.

He will tell MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs committee on Thursday that victims and their families have been abandoned by the UK, and compare their situations with Germany, France and the US, whose governments have secured millions of dollars in compensation for their nationals over Libyan-backed attacks.

“Sadly, we feel the victims and the families were forgotten by Her Majesty’s Government, as they appeared more preoccupied with securing lucrative trade deals with Qaddafi despite being aware of the appalling lack of equality,” he said.

The "deplorable and disingenuous strategy to secure compensation from the Libyan government has resulted in a number of victims taking or attempting to take their own lives in desperation".

He highlighted the case of fellow campaigner Gemma Berezzag, whose husband Zaoui was severely injured in the 1996 London Docklands attack. She killed herself in 2016 after struggling to pay for her husband's continuing care.

Libyan-backed attacks included a bomb left at a Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland in 1987, which killed 12, and an attack in Warrington, north-west England in 1992, which killed two children.

At least 3,500 were killed in attacks during the years of civil strife known as The Troubles. The deadly campaign ended with a 1998 peace agreement.

Pressure from victims and MPs prompted the UK government to order an investigation in March 2019 into the prospects of securing compensation from Libya, headed by former charity regulator William Shawcross.

He handed his findings to the government a year ago but the relatives were left dismayed after it refused to make the report public. The government said that releasing the report could damage Britain's relations with other countries.

Earlier this year, the government ruled out seizing money from nearly £12 billion ($16.49bn) of frozen funds held by UK financial institutions, or paying compensation to victims that it could later recoup from Libya once it has a more stable government.

Ministers put the onus on the victims to secure the money from the Libyan government through the courts, an unlikely proposition given the divided state of the country.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair struck a deal with Qaddafi in 2004 to dismantle his chemical weapons programme and pay compensation to victims from the plane that was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988.

But the deal did not address the issue of broader compensation claims for victims of Libyan-supplied explosives.

The relatives compared the government’s stance to the US, which passed laws in 2008 that allowed the Qaddafi regime to pay $1 billion in compensation for American victims.

Middle East Minister James Cleverly said in March that the “responsibility for providing compensation specifically for the actions of the Qaddafi regime lies with the Libyan state”.

He added: “There are clear practical difficulties in obtaining compensation from Libya for Qaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism.”