After Lockerbie bomber’s return, Libya quiet amid US, British warnings against hero welcome

After Lockerbie bomber’s return, silence in Libya

TRIPOLI, Libya — Libya appeared on Friday to be trying to downplay the return of the Lockerbie bomber, keeping him out of the public eye and making little official mention of him, amid outrage by families of the U.S. victims and a warning by President Barack Obama not to give him a hero’s welcome.

A crowd threw flower petals as Abdel Baset al-Megrahi landed at Tripoli airport Thursday night following his release from prison by Scotland — and the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escorted him home.

But even as al-Megrahi descended from the airplane, Libya seemed to quickly scale down its planned more elaborate welcome. Hundreds in the crowd were rushed away by authorities and the arrival was not aired live on state TV.

By midday Friday, it was not known where al-Megrahi had been taken, and officials had no comment on his whereabouts.

It was an unusually low-key approach for a country that in the past has snapped up any opportunity to snub the West and could easily bring out hundreds of thousands to cheer if it chose to. It suggested that Libya is wary of hurting its ties with the United States and Europe, which have improved dramatically after years as a pariah state — in part over the 1988 Lockerbie attack, in which 270 people, mostly Americans.

Al-Megrahi, who is dying of prostate cancer, was freed by Scotland on compassionate grounds after serving eight years of a life sentence over the attack. The decision infuriated the families of many of the U.S. victims, and Libya was under heavy pressure not to trumpet al-Megrahi’s release.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Friday denounced the welcome al-Megrahi received, telling the BBC that how Gadhafi’s government behaves in the next few days will “be very significant in the way the world views Libya’s re-entry into the civilized community of nations.”

On Thursday, Obama said he was in touch with Libyan authorities and told them al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, should not be “welcomed in some way but instead should be under house arrest.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote to Gadhafi before al-Megrahi’s release urging Libya to “act with sensitivity.”

A former Western diplomat once based in Tripoli, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, pointed out that the Libyan government has been conspicuously silent about his return.

The diplomat pointed out that even Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Baghdadi passed up an opportunity during a joint press conference Thursday with the Swiss president to comment on the Lockerbie bomber’s return.

There were signs of a last-minute change of plans during el-Megrahi’s arrival to tone down the reception.

Ahead of his plane’s landing Thursday night, thousands of young men were bused in to the airport. They danced to nationalist songs while a DJ encouraged them along. Many hoisted small solid-green Libyan flags while others held aloft Scottish flags.

But within minutes of the landing, authorities rushed most of them away, paring the crowd down to around 300 and the nationalist songs were halted. International media who had been brought to the airport were hastily taken away just before the arrival.

A Libyan TV channel connected to Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, had been granted exclusive rights to air al-Megrahi’s arrival live. But it did not do so. Instead, it carried short clips of him coming down the airliner’s stairs hours later, around 1 a.m. Authorities said there were technical difficulties with the live broadcast.

Also, neither al-Megrahi nor Seif al-Islam Gadhafi — who escorted him on the flight — appeared later at a previously planned rally at Tripoli’s Green Square, a sweeping plaza where thousands of chairs had been set up. The rally was organized as part of celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Libya’s revolution — not in connection with al-Megrahi — and his return did not appear to be mentioned during speeches at the rally.