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LONDON - The conviction of the only man ever found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bombing has been referred for an appeal to Scotland's High Court, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said on Wednesday.

Pam Am flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 en route from London to New York, an attack that killed 270 people, mostly Americans on their way home for Christmas.

In 2001, Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was jailed for life after being found guilty of carrying out the attack. He died in Libya in 2012 after being released three years earlier by Scotland's government on compassionate grounds following a diagnosis of terminal cancer.

Chairman of the Commission Bill Matthews said it was the second time they had reviewed Megrahi's conviction. "We note that since our last review further information has become available, including within the public domain, which the Commission has now been able to consider and assess," he said in a statement.

"I am satisfied that the matter is now returning to the appropriate forum the appeal court to consider fully all of the issues raised in our statement of reasons."

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Scottish Court to Hear Posthumous Appeal of Libyan Lockerbie Bomber - VOA News

The chairman of the Turkey-Libya Council of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, Murtaza Karanfil.[Photo: Social Media]Anadolu Agency has reported the chairman of the Turkey-Libya Council of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK) on Thursday as saying that Turkish investors should harness Libyas $120 billion investment volume especially in the contracting sector.

There is a call from Libya in this direction, said Murtaza Karanfil, adding that Libya was undergoing a reconstruction process and that there were major opportunities in all of the countrys sectors.

During the reconstruction process, houses, public buildings and roads will be rebuilt in Libya, said Karanfil, according to Anadolu Agency.

Turkey exports a wide variety of products to Libya including jewelry, furniture, poultry, carpets, semi-finished steel, hygienic towel, diaper, vegetable fixed oil, plastic profile, plastic packaging materials, medicine and clothing.

Due to difficulties in the country where Turkish contractors had undertaken their first overseas projects projects worth $19 billion remain unfinished, Karanfil indicated.

Karanfil explained that Turkish contractors currently had a total of $4 billion in receivables due to losses including collateral, machinery and equipment.

With an agreement to be signed between the two countries, we expect serious progress in the resolution of commercial problems in the coming period in contracting, he added.

We believe that as soon as we resolve the old issues on receivables, we will take things from where we left off in Libya and move them to much better points, Karanfil said.

Referring to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the Chinese economy, he said Chinas share in Libyas imports is around 13%.

We [Turkey] can well turn Chinas share in Libya and African countries to our favor using the advantages of our geopolitical location and by correct process management, he explained.

Karanfil also said that Turkeys exports to Libya exceeded $2 billion in 2012 and peaked before declining due to political upheaval in the country.

Exports increased again in 2017 and reached $1.9 billion in 2019, with an increase of 29% compared to the previous year, Karanfil added.

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Turkey sets eyes on $120 billion investment volume in Libya - Libyan Express

By Sami Zaptia.

London, 11 March 2020:

Libyas National Board for Technical and Vocational Education announced on Monday that it is reactivating its technical and vocational cooperation agreement with the European Union (EU). The agreement entails the development of Libyas technical and vocational education by the EU.

Libyas Technical and Vocational Board said that it had held a series of meetings recently with the British Council which is overseeing the implementation of the EU cooperation.

To this end, the Libyan authorities also held a meeting on Sunday to discuss the implementation of technical and vocational education within Libya to EU standards.

The meeting also reviewed the EU programme on the training and development of Libyan technical cadres and technical education institutions.

The development of a mechanism for the development of training and vocational programmes as required by the outputs of vocational and technical education for Libyas labour market, were also discussed.

It was agreed to start developing and training students of intermediate technical institutes, followed by other technical institutions.

It is worth noting that the project to develop Libyas vocational and technical education is funded by the EU which started work in January 2013 but stopped in June 2014.

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Libya reactivates its technical and vocational cooperation agreement with EU | - Libya Herald

BRUSSELS The European Union agreed on Monday to launch a new naval and air mission to stop more arms reaching the warring factions in Libya, overcoming initial objections from Austria and Hungary, which feared the ships might attract migrants and enable more of them to reach Europe.

The decision by foreign ministers was a victory for the new European foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, who has criticized the need for unanimity among all member states to make decisions on foreign and security policy.

The new mission will be limited to the eastern Mediterranean, where most arms smuggling to Libya takes place, away from the routes most migrants take to try to reach Europe from chaotic Libya. The agreement satisfies the objections of fiercely anti-immigrant nations like Austria and Hungary, which have moved sharply to the right in recent years.

Mr. Borrell had warned that the European Union could not stand idly by while nearby Libya was embroiled in civil war aided most recently by Russia and Turkey, which support opposite sides.

At a Berlin summit meeting last month, world leaders agreed to encourage a cease-fire and stop the flow of weapons into Libya, but little has changed on the ground and fighting continues.

The Tripoli government of Fayez al-Sarraj, backed by the United Nations, is under attack from forces led by Khalifa Hifter, who controls much of the south and east of the country. He is supported by states including Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, while Mr. Sarraj is supported by Turkey and Qatar.

The E.U.s new arms blockade replaces another E.U. mission which had gone defunct Operation Sophia which had been rescuing migrants off the Libyan coast and ferrying them to Europe. Italy, Austria and Hungary objected, fearing an influx of migrants. Operation Sophia had been inactive since last March, but was never officially ended.

Mr. Borrell had hoped to revive Operation Sophia., and criticized Austria on Sunday for blocking its revival, saying that it was absurd for a landlocked country without a navy to exercise such a veto.

Austria has taken a tough anti-migrant stance under its current chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, and its position was supported by another landlocked country, Hungary, whose right-wing populist government has also drawn a hard line against migration.

We all agree to create a mission that blocks the flow of arms into Libya, Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio of Italy told reporters, referring to a U.N. arms embargo first imposed in 2011 but widely violated. Re-establishing the embargo is seen as vital to stabilizing the Libyan conflict. Recent efforts to restore a cease-fire there have collapsed.

But Mr. di Maio also said that if the mission creates a pull factor, that is to say the ships attract migrants, the mission will be stopped.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said similarly that Vienna would be vigilant for any signs that the mission, which will take several weeks to set up, was attracting migrants into Europe.

There is a basic consensus that we now want a military operation and not a humanitarian mission, he said.

Mr. Borrell said that he hoped the operation could be patrolling by the end of March and would operate in international, not Libyan, waters.

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With Libya Still at War, E.U. Agrees to Try Blocking Weapons Flow - The New York Times

MILAN Italian authorities have arrested the captain of a Lebanese-flagged cargo ship which was seized in the port of Genoa on suspicion of trafficking arms to Libya, including tanks and artillery, the city's chief prosecutor said on Friday.

Any deliveries of weapons to Libya would be in violation of a United Nations embargo, although U.N. officials say the embargo has been subject to frequent violations.

The vessel, the Bana, was blocked by police in Genoa harbor on Feb. 3.

It was then searched after a ship's officer told Italian authorities that weapons had been loaded onto the ship at the Turkish port of Mersin then transported to the Libyan capital Tripoli, a judicial source said.

The shipment included tanks, howitzers, machineguns and air defense systems, the source said.

The ship was originally scheduled to sail from Turkey to Genoa. But according to the informant, who has requested political asylum, Turkish military officers escorting the shipment had told the crew to declare that the stop in Tripoli was due to mechanical problem.

The Bana then continued without cargo to Genoa in order to load cars in the Italian port, chief prosecutor Franco Cozzi said.

The ship's captain, Joussef Tartiussi, a Lebanese national, was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of trying to influence his crew's testimony and concealing evidence, Cozzi said.

Tartiussi's lawyer declined to comment.

The Turkish government backs Fayez al-Sarraj, prime minister of Libya's internationally-recognized government, which has been fighting since last April for control of Tripoli against the Libyan National Army led by eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar.

Italian authorities are analyzing the ship's navigation equipment and mobile phones of crew members with the aim of verifying the route followed by the Bana, whose transponders were turned off after it left the Turkish port, Cozzi said.

He said that even though the alleged trafficking had not taken place in Italian waters, it was still necessary to carry out the investigation because if it had occurred, any arms deliveries would be in violation of the U.N. embargo.

(Reporting by Emilio Parodi; editing by James Mackenzie and Angus MacSwan)

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Italy Arrests Ship's Captain Over Alleged Libya Arms Trafficking - The New York Times