"The orders were given by Gaddafi himself," he told Rob Crilly.
Mr Abel Jalil claimed he had evidence that convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi worked for Gaddafi.
"This evidence is in our hands and we have documents that prove what I have said and we are ready to hand them over to the international criminal court," he added.
Since then, I haven't seen any sign that Jalil's evidence has been shown to anyone. So we don't know that it actually exists, or that he was telling the truth. But the original headlines did the trick -- anyone watching television or reading stories then would have been led to believe that Qaddafi was behind this dastardly deed.
A couple of days later, for the first time, President Obama called for Qaddafi to step down. And not long thereafter, the US, UK and their allies were getting ready to pitch military action against Qaddafi, originally characterized as solely humanitarian, "to protect civilians." (Eventually, the top British military figure would indiscreetly admit that the relentless bombing was intended to remove the Libyan leader.)
We'll get back to the propaganda machine and its effectiveness later, but let's now examine the relationship between the Western governments and Qaddafi. Was it, as presented in the media, merely a case of doing the right thing against a brutal tyrant? One also accused of being behind the murder of those airline passengers?
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This is not the place to recount the entire back history between Qaddafi and the alliance. Suffice to say that Qaddafi is one of a long string of foreign leaders who insisted on an independent course, including requisite regional big-footing, and got in trouble. Specifically, we could look at some skirmishes with the US Navy during the Reagan-Bush administration, but there's a long list of grievances. This, as in the case of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, is compounded by the fact that he sits on massive oil reserves. Add in his brutality, avarice and bizarre manner, and you've got an attractive target, and an easy one for his enemies' publicity departments.
As animosity grew, Libya started being labeled a terrorist force, possibly with some truth, and then connected to a serious of major outrages with which it may or may not have had anything to do.
One was the death of several US soldiers in a Berlin nightclub in 1986, and another the alleged sponsorship of a hijacking that same year. But the thing that turned much of the world against Qaddafi was the alleged role of Libya in blowing Pan Am 103 apart.
Most of us probably remember, vaguely, that Libya's role in that is an established fact. If so, we're off base. Let's start with this 2001 BBC report, following the conviction of Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer:
Robert Black, the Scottish law professor who devised the format of the Netherlands-based trial, was quoted on Sunday as saying he was "absolutely astounded" that Al Megrahi had been found guilty.
Mr Black said he believed the prosecution had "a very, very weak circumstantial case" and he was reluctant to believe that Scottish judges would "convict anyone, even a Libyan" on such evidence.
The view, published in British newspapers, echoes that of some of the families of UK victims of the Lockerbie bombing, who are calling for a public inquiry to find "the truth of who was responsible and what the motive was".
Protests
Wednesday's verdict sparked angry protests in Libya on Saturday, as Washington and London demanded the Libyan Government accept responsibility for the atrocity and pay compensation to the victims' families.
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