Britain hopes Libya keeps Lockerbie Bomber release anniversary low-key



A year after the Lockerbie bomber was released from a Scottish prison, Britain warned Libya not to celebrate the anniversary today, saying to do so would be "tasteless, offensive and deeply insensitive". Abdel Basset Ali al Megrahi was thought to have only three months to live because of terminal prostate cancer when he was freed on compassionate grounds and returned to his homeland Libya to a hero's welcome.

But he has defied his prognosis, to the dismay of the mainly American relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, four days before Christmas in 1988. Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, again defended his government's decision to free al Megrahi in a round of interviews Friday, telling the BBC it acted "in good faith on the information that was available at the time".

"No one could have absolute certainty [about how long al Megrahi would live]," Mr Salmond said. "That was a reasonable expectation of his life expectancy." Earlier, the UK Foreign Office issued a strongly-worded statement urging Libya not to hold celebrations honouring the only man "convicted for the worst act of terrorism in British history". "Particularly on this anniversary, we understand the continuing anguish that al Megrahi's release has caused his victims, both in the UK and the US," a spokesman said.

"Any celebration of al Megrahi's release will be tasteless, offensive and deeply insensitive to the victims' families. We have made our concerns clear to the Libyan government." Britain's ambassador to Tripoli, Richard Northern, has told senior Libyan government officials that any public events honouring Megrahi could damage warming ties between the two countries, The Guardian newspaper reported.

Mr Salmond said that it would be "totally inappropriate" for Libya to celebrate the anniversary. Questions remain about the precise circumstances of the release, though, with US senators demanding more information on the case. The US Senate's foreign relations committee is to hold a hearing on al Megrahi in the coming weeks. This will examine whether BP, already facing intense pressure in the United States over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, played a part in securing al Megrahi's release in a bid to safeguard a $900 million (Dh3.3bn) exploration deal with Libya.

BP deny this and the Scottish government has refused to send ministers to Washington to appear before the hearing, saying there are no more documents it can release on the affair. Mr Salmond suggested today that he could be prepared to send his ministers to give evidence if an international inquiry was set up into the affair. "If there as to be a duly constituted international inquiry ... then of course we would cooperate fully," he said.

Most of those on board the passenger jet were from the United States, where many relatives strongly opposed 58-year-old al Megrahi's release after he had served eight years of a minimum 20-year term. Mary Kay Stratis, whose husband Elia was killed in the bombing, told the BBC: " "He's lived his life now as a free man surrounded by his family and certainly not a privilege that my husband had. We need some answers".

Some of those affected by the attack in Britain question whether al Megrahi was the real bomber. The campaign group Justice for Megrahi, whose committee members include Jim Swire, whose daughter was on board Flight 103, wants a full investigation into all circumstances of the attack. Father Patrick Keegans, Lockerbie's priest at the time, who lived on a street virtually destroyed by the plane's wing section, told AFP this week that al Megrahi's conviction did not stand up to scrutiny.

"Until the full truth is known, people can't lay this to rest because the truth allows us to deal with things and then reconstruct our lives," he said. * AFP

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Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.

Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.

Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.

Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.

Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.

Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.

Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.

Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.

Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.

Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.

Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.

While you're here
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe

Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010

Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille

Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm

Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year

Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”

Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners

TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013 

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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