Apologies. It’s been a while since the last blog. Excuses include illness and a heavy workload. Time to get back on track…

Chatting to victims’ campaigner Willie Frazer this morning, he informs me that a delegation including him and MP Jeffrey Donaldson will meet with Labour MPs and members of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee at Westminster next week – to discuss the British Government’s refusal to support the compensation case against Libya for its sponsorship of the IRA.

There is some concern among MPs, including Labour’s Andrew McKinlay, that first Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown have completely ignored the victims’ legal bid to hold Colonel Gadaffi accountable for his supply of millions of dollars, training, weaponry and Semtex , during the Troubles.

The recent deal struck by the American administration, which will grant the re-opening of economic and diplomatic links with Tripoli, in exchange for pay-outs to the US victims of terrorist atrocities linked to Libya (including IRA bombings), excluded UK victims – even though they were part of the lawsuit in the court system Stateside.

Questions have since been asked as to why the UK Government has not used its leverage with Gadaffi, in the way that the Bush regime went into bat for its citizens.

Gordon Brown recently wrote to solicitors H2O – representing the victims in Northern Ireland – to basically say, Libya is now the UK’s friend and it is not in the nation’s interest to pursue Gadaffi for his crimes.

But there is some speculation that victims from the Province could now mount a legal challenge to the Government, for failure to protect their rights.

Next Wednesday’s meeting will be crucial to establishing whether pressure will be brought to bare on Brown, from within the Labour Party.

But outside the pages of the News Letter, which first broke the story of the Libya lawsuit and has followed it in detail, it has been surprising how little coverage this case and the settlement in America has received.

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/politics/Hopes-of-compensation-for-IRA.4348074.jp