Oral evidence: HM Government support for UK victims of IRA attacks that used Gaddafi-supplied Semtex and Weapons, HC 40614 October 2015

Oral evidence, 14 October 2015.

Witness

Sir Vincent Fean KCVO, former HM Ambassador to Libya, gave evidence.

Chair

Just to remind the Committee and our witness, we have Northern Ireland Questions at 11.30, so I will have to wind this session up at 11.20 at the very latest, so if we can be reasonably disciplined. Sir Vincent, thank you very much for joining us. I am not going to ask you to make an opening statement; I think we can cover most things in questions. You have just heard a presentation or responses from a witness who has been perhaps more forthright than we normally get from witnesses, so what is your reaction?

Sir Vincent Fean

First, may I say thank you for inviting me and just clarify the terms in which I am speaking, as a private individual? I retired from the Foreign Office in February of last year, so I am not speaking for Government. I am speaking for myself, and I came along because you asked me and out of respect for this Committee and out of respect for the victims. We will come on to questions, but my reaction, swiftly, is that this issue matters, that it is a very tricky one for Government and has been over decades, it does need to be addressed and I hope that the Committee’s work will facilitate that and that my evidence today can be of some use. I need to confine myself to the period when I was in Libya, which is mid‑2006 to April 2010, so I do not know the substantive follow up to the visit that Mr MacKinlay and his colleagues undertook. I was around for a few months after that, so I can talk about that period, but what happened after April 2010 is outside my knowledge.

Chair

During your time there, did you see things changing in the regime or in the approach from the British Government to this issue? Were there any changes that you identified?

Sir Vincent Fean

I can say something about the general picture in Libya in my time and then perhaps touch on the particular change by Mr Brown in 2009, which led to the visit we have talked about. I summarise the experience of working with the Libyan regime as difficult. The regime was corrupt and self‑serving. It centred on one man, Gaddafi, and his immediate family, including Saif. Around him there were some clever and sensible people who wanted to do good, but they were firefighting. One of them was Obeidi, who was one of the people the delegation met back in 2009, but they spent a lot of time on damage limitation and the survival of the regime, which was the priority for Gaddafi. When I first arrived, the memory of the renunciation of WMD and the renunciation of support for terrorism was fresh, and I felt optimism, as an incoming ambassador, that there was a chance to improve matters both in Libya and in the relationship between the UK and Libya. There was a hope that Gaddafi would let his son Saif reform the economy and even democratise the country, but that did not happen. As a practitioner, I found that Libya was very hard to read, hard to understand: no free press, no political opposition during my time—it has grown, obviously, since—and decision‑making confined to a very small group of people, some of whom would talk to an ambassador, others not. I met Gaddafi a few times myself, usually in the company of visitors, and I would say he was neither mad nor stupid. He ran the country in a very ramshackle way for 40 years. He was vain, arrogant and vindictive and he did not really change much in the time that I was there. He was anti‑colonialist, anti‑imperialist, worked a lot on Africa—he had aspirations to be a leader in Africa. He was courted a lot by Italy and France and other countries in my time. I would say he was afraid of the USA and he tried to combat Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups, so that was one of the things that stood out. He tried to improve education and health; he inherited a country that was poor in both back in 1969. To conclude, the relationship with the UK in my four years, I would say, cooled in that time. The realisation that problems would continue to crop up throughout my time with Libya became real. They needed us for some things. They needed us for education help through the British Council, through our universities—there were lots of postgrad students from Libya coming here—and we tried to facilitate that. We did some good projects, like improving prison conditions in Libyan prisons, with some astute advice. However, where the bilateral issues, like WPC Fletcher, like Megrahi, like the IRA Semtex victims, cropped up, they were preoccupations and they remained obstacles virtually throughout my time, and our political relationship was never normal, so a rollercoaster existence, as Mr MacKinlay mentioned. On the issue, which we will come back to, I am sure, of 2009 and the decision by Mr Brown to create the unit and to facilitate the visit of the delegation, that did make a difference. It meant that the embassy was directly involved for, essentially, the first time in seeking to understand what the Libyan regime would and would not do. We did facilitate the visit. I accompanied throughout and, as Mr MacKinlay said, reported back as best I could. We did lobby. We lobbied on the issue of goodwill, on the issue of clearing the air and on the issue of trying to ensure that the relationship was improving, and we made it clear that this visit particularly was important in that regard. Just to conclude, I would say that there was a possibility, I thought, of a gesture from the Libyan authorities. I was never sure, personally, that they would move to the level of compensation that Mr McCue and his team were eventually seeking, but there was an issue to do with investment in Northern Ireland by the Libyan Investment Authority—infrastructure projects in Northern Ireland that were worthy, needed to be done and where the LIA had funds that could be devoted to that on a kind of win‑win. That was one option at the back of my mind when the delegation came.

Chair

Thank you very much for a very comprehensive account.

Lady Hermon

Sir Vincent, it is extremely good of you to come and give us evidence, particularly now that you have retired. You are still prepared to come back, so thank you so much for doing that. It is really valuable to have you here today. I can understand why you were an ambassador and a diplomat, because in your opening remarks you have given some key information and then some very diplomatic phrases. When asked about your reaction to Andrew MacKinlay’s evidence, in your immediate response you said, “This is a very tricky issue.” Did you mean the issue of compensation for the families of those who have lost loved ones to IRA Libyan‑sponsored violence? Is the tricky issue the issue of compensation?

Sir Vincent Fean

I meant that negotiating with Libya or advocating a concession by Libya on this issue was tricky for me and for the embassy. If I can take the opportunity just to say my own opinion on the course of events before 2009—

Lady Hermon

Do you mind if I just follow through on this? You described it as a very tricky issue and then you said, “It needs to be addressed.” Could I just ask you to clarify what exactly you mean by that? Now that we have a Libyan government to deal with—I know it is very fragile and all the rest of it—should the present Government do the morally right thing, and that is seek compensation for those throughout the United Kingdom who have lost family members or who have been maimed because of IRA Libyan‑sponsored violence?

Sir Vincent Fean

To come back to you point about “tricky”, I was focusing on the work that I had to do in order to try to deliver an outcome specifically in 2009. On your question, it is important that this issue should be presented to the future Libyan government.

Lady Hermon

Are you talking about the issue of compensation?

Sir Vincent Fean

Yes. That is important, which is why this Committee is focused on it.

Lady Hermon

More than important; it is a moral responsibility of this Government.

Sir Vincent Fean

I cannot speak for the Government, as you know, but perhaps I may offer some advice. At the moment, to my knowledge, there are still two governments in Libya today. They have not reconciled. That has to come, because there is no easy way of dealing with two. I hope it comes. I hope it comes soon. When it does, my advice would be that the victims and their representatives and their advocates should make common cause with those who have also suffered under Gaddafi—Libyans, who have also suffered under Gaddafi—to say that their issue is the same and that their suffering has been the same and that they should be compensated in the same way. The reason I say that is there is a risk—I put it no higher than that, but this is my personal opinion—that the successor government to Gaddafi will disown all of Gaddafi’s actions, which would leave the situation in suspense.

Lady Hermon

Yes. That is very worrying, but thank you for that personal opinion. You will also have heard the previous witness, Andrew MacKinlay, asserting that when he visited with other MPs and again when he met with you, he believed that you were under instructions at the time, from the British Government, not to get involved. Is that the case? Is that true? Is that accurate? This is 2009, Tripoli.

Sir Vincent Fean

It depends what you call “involved”, if I may be as precise as I can.

Lady Hermon

Yes, that is what we want you to be—precise.

Sir Vincent Fean

I was involved; the embassy was involved to the extent that our instructions allowed, and that was—

Lady Hermon

Excuse me, were your instructions from the Prime Minister or the Foreign Office?

Sir Vincent Fean

They were from the Foreign Office. The sequence was the decision by Mr Brown to create the unit and to facilitate the subsequent consultations leading to a visit. The process thereafter was that Mr McCue and parliamentarians were invited to several meetings in the Foreign Office, operated by video conference with people in the embassy, including me whenever I could, to discuss what was achievable and to discuss what line the visit would take. I call that “involvement”. Were we empowered to speak for the delegation? No. That is not what the remit of the unit was and not what the remit, therefore, by extension, of the embassy was.

Lady Hermon

Why did no Government Minister go with the delegation? Mr MacKinlay made it quite clear that he felt that, if a Government Minister had been there, rather than just a delegation of MPs, though very worthy individuals in their own right, it would have made a difference. Was there an instruction that no Government Minister went with that delegation? Did you understand that at the time?

Sir Vincent Fean

I concluded that the delegation was free‑standing. In other words, it was not representing Government. It was not a Government delegation.

Lady Hermon

Were you comfortable with that?

Sir Vincent Fean

If you are an ambassador or if you are a diplomat, it is not really a matter of whether you are comfortable or not, you get on with it, and I got on with it.

Lady Hermon

Did you think it was odd at the time? Having set up a special unit, supposedly to help victims of IRA Libyan‑sponsored violence in the UK, did you not think it was rather odd and perverse that no Government Minister came with that delegation to Tripoli?

Sir Vincent Fean

I was aware that the remit to the unit and therefore to the embassy was not to assume governmental responsibility for the negotiations. That I knew.

Lady Hermon

It was a hands‑off approach.

Sir Vincent Fean

My hands were on, in the sense that I was involved in the planning and in the conduct of the visit and was involved in trying, if I may put it this way, to prepare the ground for a positive outcome to that visit.

Lady Hermon

Otherwise, though, it was a hands‑off approach by the British Government and Foreign Office at that time.

Sir Vincent Fean

I do not know if you could call it hands‑off compared with 2008, 2007, 2006. It was an engagement.

Lady Hermon

Let us go to 2008, after Prime Minister Tony Blair had resigned from office. There is an email that you will be aware of, I am sure, and that was an exchange and, again, in his evidence, Mr MacKinlay said that you appeared to be exasperated by the number of times that former Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to Tripoli after he left office. That was his impression. He made it quite clear that was his impression. Can I ask you directly, since you are here, were you exasperated by the number of times that former Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to Tripoli after he left office?

Sir Vincent Fean

No. I do not recall that conversation. The visit of a former prime minster to the country to which you are accredited is an important visit whenever it occurs, because that person has held the highest office in the United Kingdom and requires security assistance on any visit anywhere, so I was not frustrated or upset by the fact that Mr Blair visited. That is not the way I felt.

Lady Hermon

Did he visit often? The impression was he visited on a number of occasions.

Sir Vincent Fean

I have tried to look back, without having access to the files since I am in my personal life now. I seem to recall three visits in my time after he left office, so between 2007 and 2010.

Lady Hermon

In the very detailed email that the Committee has access to between you and the former Prime Minister, sent to his office, the office of Tony Blair, there were lots of detailed pieces of information. One of them was about arms supplies, and I think I recall also oil companies. Were those obstacles—and the word “obstacles” has been used—to the compensation issue being resolved? There was the supply of British weapons, British arms sales, and that meant jobs in the UK and maintaining those jobs—that certainly appears in the email between you and Tony Blair. Were those obstacles to compensation to British victims in this country of IRA Libyan‑sponsored violence? You are not nodding your head because that is agreement.

Sir Vincent Fean

No, no, I am thinking. I did not see them as obstacles competing in order of priority. I did not see them that way. Just to describe that email to you, it was a briefing note written on my own authority to Mr Blair in an attempt to bring him up to date with events before his visit, because I did not think I would have the opportunity to brief him on arrival. That was the status of it. Let me make one other point about business. The job of an embassy is, at least in part, to protect British citizens in the country and uphold their rights, and to facilitate and support trade and investment, in the sense that that creates and sustains jobs in the United Kingdom. That was part of the background to that email. The job of an ambassador in Libya after Libya came back in to the mainstream, if you like, of world affairs after Lockerbie and after the resolution of Lockerbie was to promote legitimate business between British businesses and Libya. Therefore, part of my job each month was to receive a trade mission from some part of the United Kingdom, occasionally from Northern Ireland, to try to introduce them to Libyan businesses that sought to take advantage of the new freedoms. As part of my research—and I hope this is relevant—I have discovered an email in turn, which is a press statement from Mr Blair’s office. This email of mine is in the public domain and has been for some time, and if I may read out to the Committee the press release that Mr Blair’s office have made about it, not my words but theirs—

Lady Hermon

This was dated when?

Sir Vincent Fean

I do not have the date, but my email was in mid‑2008. I do not remember when it came into the public domain, but at that point Mr Blair’s office were asked a question about it. I am sure that could be found, but I do not have it.

Lady Hermon

That is fine.

Sir Vincent Fean

It is about the very beginning of the email, I think. “Mr Blair did not have any involvement with the terms of compensation nor any discussion with President Bush on the matter. The email you reference expresses Government policy at the time, which was to re‑engage with the Libyans after they gave up their WMD programme and chose to co‑operate rather than sponsor terrorism.” That is the email response—the press release response of the Blair office.

Lady Hermon

I just complete this by repeating my question. Were the growing business links between the UK and Libya, at that time, obstacles to the British Government seeking, which they ought to have done, compensation for IRA Libyan victims?

Sir Vincent Fean

As I think I said, no. They were issues on the table. They were issues with which we, as a government, were dealing in an attempt to facilitate, as I said earlier—

Lady Hermon

There was no trade‑off with trying to help business.

Sir Vincent Fean

No, not to my knowledge. The issue, for instance, of WPC Fletcher was an ongoing concern and an ongoing priority for the embassy and for the British Government throughout my time and a difficult one to deal with, because the Libyan regime played a very hard game on issues like visa access for Metropolitan Police Officers trying to get into Libya to conduct interviews. They promised and then did not deliver. That was an ongoing issue in my time. There are other issues of a like nature in the Megrahi case that Mr MacKinlay referred to, but I did not see a cross‑fertilisation between those issues and the issue that is the focus of your inquiry.

Lady Hermon

Thanks so much.

Chair

Thank you very much. I have a long list of people who want to come in now, and we will start with Gavin.

Gavin Robinson

Good morning, Sir Vincent. When we explored the issue of how you described it being “tricky”, you said it was tricky for you and tricky for the embassy. As somebody who is being candid this morning, can I ask were you ever personally frustrated with the political parameters you were given and in which you operated, as opposed to being professionally frustrated, which I suspect you would not agree with?

Sir Vincent Fean

To be honest, and this would apply more generally, if you are a civil servant you play with the hand that you are dealt. In other words, there are policy decisions taken back in London, which you implement, and if the issue is—how shall I put it—of direct concern and interest to the relationship between Libya and the United Kingdom, then you offer advice on it. The decision is taken in London, usually by ministers, if it is a big enough decision. The issue that I know is at the heart of some of your thinking is this issue of whether the Government should have assumed direct responsibility for negotiating an outcome with the Libyan authorities for the Semtex victims. If I may put it very directly, I inherited that decision in the sense that it was already made, I think, in 2006. I came in 2006. At that point, as I saw from Mr McCue’s evidence, the legal representatives of the victims had made a decision to go to the American courts, because the UK courts were not, in a sense, available to them. That decision having been taken, it was not for me to re‑examine it. The issue came back to the fore at around the time of the US compensation negotiations with Libya, at which point, as I have read from Mr Rammel’s answers in Parliament, there was a decision by the United Kingdom Government to seek to join the UK case to that of the US victims, and that was turned down. If I may add one personal comment, since you asked for my personal views, I deeply regret that. I found that decision sad and negative. I was not party to it. It was a decision taken in Washington, and I do not know the detail of how it came about and who said what to whom. But I find that deeply regrettable, because the United States had a large amount of influence on Libya at that time and, indeed, now, and joining with them would have increased the chances of success. However, the United States, for reasons that I do not really understand, did not wish to associate the UK victims with the US victims.

Gavin Robinson

Sure, and if that is the personal reflection, then, as it were, it may have been tricky for you, and you have given some personal reflection of it being tricky for the embassy. Did you feel that you were having to go through the motions with those who had an earnest endeavour to settle the claim with Libya whilst recognising, yourself, that HMG’s position was entirely different?

Sir Vincent Fean

I sought always to be honest with the team who came together in London to prepare the visit. The fact that the US had done what it did meant that the Libyans were aware that the issue was one of goodwill and opportunity and clearing the decks, if you like, of legacy. That was their impression. They had good legal teams themselves. They knew the sequence of events involving the decision not to go to UK courts, the decision to go to US courts and then the US decision. In those circumstances, my objective in talking to the team in preparation for the visit was not to give them any false impression of the chances of success but to seek ways to influence the interlocutors that they were about to go and see, to try to ensure that that issue of good relations—it may sound rather weak—between the United Kingdom and Libya mattered to them for the future and that, therefore, they should be open to listening to the representations being made.

Gavin Robinson

I suspect, with time, we are not going to get the opportunity to explore that as fully as I would like, but I want to turn in one question, if I may, to your email. You had indicated to Tony Blair in your email, “Her Majesty’s Government is not involved in the talks, although some British citizens might be affected by them,” and you refer to Northern Ireland victims, so I see you flagging up the issue of compensation in this email. You then go on to indicate that “the UK’s main objective is to promote the City of London as a safe and profitable place for Libya to invest a sovereign wealth fund”, and then you say New York had shot itself in the foot, or at least President George Bush had, in the way in which they had engaged with Libya. Would you agree that the pursuit of a profitable and prosperous relationship with Libya was at the expense of compensation and justice for victims?

Sir Vincent Fean

No. As I said earlier, I do not believe that the issues that I regarded as important objectives for the British Ambassador were in conflict. There was an objective in relation to WPC Fletcher. There was an objective in relation to the aftermath of Lockerbie.

Gavin Robinson

With respect, are you not linking them in this email that I have just read, in those two paragraphs?

Sir Vincent Fean

Yes.

Gavin Robinson

You are linking them?

Sir Vincent Fean

The issue there, I think, related back to the question of whether the UK Government was going to take the lead or not in the issue of seeking compensation, and this was an email written in mid‑2008, so this is the implication of what I was saying. The background to my stay in Libya was that the UK Government had decided not to take up the cudgels on behalf of the victims directly.

Gavin Robinson

Would the consequence of doing so be to shoot yourself in the foot like New York did?

Sir Vincent Fean

The bit about shooting yourself in the foot is a rather detailed point, but let me make it. There was the decision by the US President, which I regarded as a threat, as I now look back, leading to the successful negotiation of the compensation settlement. The threat was issued in January 2008 by adding a couple of sentences to a US Congressional Defence Act. The import of that decision was to open the way for US courts to attach assets of Libya in the US. The result of that was that Libya pulled a lot of its money out of the US fast, before it could be attached—$9 billion, I think. That money went somewhere. Some of it went to Switzerland, some of it went, I think, to the UK. The economic impact of that was important, and I come back to my original thought that one of the objectives of the embassy, one of the Government, is to try to facilitate trade. It is not the only objective; it is one of them. I saw some opportunity for the City of London in that change of heart by the Libyan Government, with a view to the Libyan Investment Authority having an office here in London in order to facilitate activity. Looking further down the pipe, looking on to 2009 and the decision that Mr Brown made to open the door to that delegation visit, that could have led to LIA investment in the United Kingdom and could have led to LIA investment in Northern Ireland.

Ian Paisley

First of all, this gives me an opportunity to publicly thank you, Sir Vincent, for all the really hard work I know that you did for Northern Ireland. Any trade delegation, any business group, any lawyers, any victims group that we sent, and I was instrumental in sending some of those groups to you and meeting you personally over the years, you have always treated them with the utmost courtesy and with the utmost of help. I know that any delay in achieving what we have hoped to achieve has certainly not been at your behest, and this gives me an opportunity to publicly thank you for that. You have given us some fantastic evidence. I wish we had more time with you, but you said that victims should make common cause. You have given some advice about what victims should do. I am really tempted to ask you whether you would come out of retirement and advise or lead such a group, given your intricate and intimate knowledge of the situation in Libya.

Sir Vincent Fean

Thank you for the compliment and thank you for the thought. My problem is this: I left in 2010, went to Jerusalem and my mind is now rather preoccupied with the Israel‑Palestine question, particularly now with the violence under way. That has been my interest since retirement. The Libyan situation now is wholly different from the one that I lived. I mentioned in the beginning that there was no opposition in Libya in my time. The nearest thing to an opposition was Saif—political opposition. He had rows with his father about liberalisation, about the way forward. He tended to lose. Now we have tribal interests, militias—you know the story—and finding a way through that, to be honest, requires somebody who has been involved more recently than me. I would say that it should be possible for the FCO to offer some advice in this area. They have an embassy currently in Tunis, but they have an ambassador, who is a good guy, Peter Millett, and the North Africa team in London have followed the ups and downs of Libyan politics over the last five years in a way that I have not. The idea that there could be discussion between victims’ representatives from Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK and Libya itself—people who have suffered under Gaddafi and who make claims upon the next Libyan government—seems, to me, to be a logical way to go and it kind of bypasses the issue that I mentioned, which is a risk of the next Libyan government simply disowning everything that Gaddafi did.

Mr Nigel Evans

We are all trying to get to grips with why it is that compensation has not been paid fully to UK victims whereas it has in a number of other cases, other nationalities. Do you believe that someone has made a distinction between, let us say, the Lockerbie bombing, where the Libyans were directly involved, and other atrocities where the Libyans supplied weapons? Do you believe a distinction has been made, either by the UK Government, the Libyan Government or both, that there is a distinct difference between the two things and therefore they should not be treated equally?

Sir Vincent Fean

I can only speak for myself and I do not know what the last Libyan regime felt, other than to say that, knowing them, if they could get away without paying they would. You put your finger on an important point. This is a very personal view; I am not a lawyer, but I think one of the reasons why the British courts were averse or unwilling to take the case back in 2006 was partly time expiry under our laws of the tragic incidents, but also that the litigants were addressing not the direct perpetrators but the suppliers. There is no doubt about the supply; there is no contestation about that, but they were not the people who placed the bombs. They were not Libyan. The other thing to say is that there was an internationally agreed package through UN Security Council resolutions relating to Lockerbie, UTA and the Berlin bombing. They were the subject of sanctions. They were the subject of internationally agreed economic sanctions on Libya that hurt. This issue was not part of that package. I cannot say why, but this issue was not part of that package and therefore was treated differently.

Nigel Mills

I suppose we are in danger of going round and round the same point, but the question I want to understand is: when you became the Ambassador for Libya, what were you told your priorities were? What were you told you were there to achieve?

Sir Vincent Fean

I inherited the job from Anthony Layden, who was mentioned by Mr MacKinlay, so it was not a blank page. I was the third Ambassador, I think, since the renewal of relations. I was given clear instructions by officials, and I cannot remember whether I met the Minister for foreign affairs before leaving—I probably did—to pursue British interests, to defend them. The issues immediately on the table were to try to secure identification and conviction of the murderer of WPC Fletcher, which was one specific issue, and to ensure that the aftermath of WMD—there was still some yellowcake in Libya—was got rid of. So, if I can be generic, there was a series of instructions. To be honest with you, I do not recall an instruction on the issue that is the focus of this inquiry. That may be because, speaking with the benefit of hindsight, the choice of litigation by the representatives of the victims—litigation, by the time I got to Libya, in the US courts—meant that for the people who were instructing me that issue was being dealt with on a legal basis elsewhere and, therefore, was not something that I should take a direct interest in, because it was not happening in Libya, with Libya, if you understand me; it was a litigation case elsewhere.

Nigel Mills

The contrast with the US, where Congress almost said, “We will not agree to lift US sanctions unless our victims get compensated,” is quite stark, is it not, because presumably we were doing lots of things without any kind of caveat of, “We want the compensation”? It was not prioritised.

Sir Vincent Fean

If I may say, if I understand correctly, what the US did is co‑operate with the UK and France and the rest of the Security Council in relation to the sanctions. The international sanctions were lifted. They were lifted by the time I got there, so it was legitimate, at that point, for oil companies and others to invest in Libya. I have one small point about that, because I remember from earlier evidence there was a question about how many oil companies were involved. There were three British oil companies out of about 40 or 45 oil companies. BG, BP and Shell were engaged in Libya when I arrived and there were American, Italian, Indian, et cetera, oil companies active as well. To come back to your point, sir, the internationally agreed sanctions had gone. There was Libya’s return to the international community. What the Americans did in January 2008 was a unilateral act, but because they are big and powerful and important it was an effective unilateral act, and my wish, as I expressed earlier, my hope, would have been that the UK request to associate itself with that act and with the subsequent negotiations could have been accepted by the US.

Danny Kinahan

Sir Vincent, you mentioned earlier that the likely new government is likely to disown everything that Gaddafi did in the past, yet we still have the frozen assets here, so they are, presumably, still a bargaining chip or a factor involved. Presumably, it has to be something that is important to them. Surely that is the way forward.

Sir Vincent Fean

I read the evidence of Mr Ellwood, which suggested that there are legal reasons why we would not seek to attach those assets. “We” the Government; I cannot speak for the Government. That was my reading of his evidence. The next Libyan government is going to face myriad challenges to survive, in terms of security, to create jobs for its people, because oil and gas is the only thing they do right now, and to cater for the educated graduate people. They will have many challenges. If my conclusion from the previous evidence is correct, Her Majesty’s Government is unlikely to attach the frozen assets. That is why I suggest the other way that I have aired of trying to persuade the Libyan Government that the issue that motivates this Committee and motivates the victims is theirs, because there is shared suffering under Gaddafi.

Danny Kinahan

On a different angle, when we have been talking about the fear of losing contracts, for the British Government, whether it is oil, were there still other fears? Did Libya have a massive influence in other countries where we would be doing other deals? On another angle to the same question, was the regime totally clean, without effect of other would‑be terrorists? Did it have a powerful position both in trade and what was going on in the world?

Sir Vincent Fean

Libya, in the period that I was there, had come back and was more open to trade and investment and to discussion than ever before. The renunciation of terrorism by Libya, I think, in terms of the West, was real. Gaddafi continued to take an interest or ferment trouble—you can put it either way—in neighbouring countries like Sudan, Mali and Niger, and continued to have a very antagonistic relationship with Saudi Arabia. Those issues, while troublesome, were not a direct threat to British citizens or to British interests, so we monitored them, we tried to observe them, but we did not regard them as a threat to us. They were often a great cause of irritation. That is what I would say.

Oliver Colvile

Thank you very much indeed, Sir Vincent, for coming to speak to us. I am not going to pretend for one moment that I understand totally how the Foreign Office works, but am I right in thinking that you, as the Ambassador, with your head of station would have been relaying information back—any intelligence that you might have picked up within the gossip around Libya? Is that fair?

Sir Vincent Fean

I shall duck the assertion about the head of station. Our job, as an entity, as a collective, was to seek information that would be of use to British policymakers, to promote British interests, as we saw them, and in the particular phase that Libya was in, to do what we could to try to ensure that there was no stepping back to support for terrorism, to support for WMD—that the decisions that Gaddafi had made, maybe expediently, were maintained, because the opposite of that would have been a threat to British interests.

Oliver Colvile

During your time, from 2006 onwards, would you have been aware or did you know of any involvement between the IRA and the Libyan Administration at the time?

Sir Vincent Fean

I cannot recall any. I cannot recall any. There was warmth from Libya to the nationalist side.

Lady Hermon

Sinn Féin.

Sir Vincent Fean

Yes. I do not remember visits. I am trying to remember. I do not remember visits, but I would not necessarily have known. I did not see any operational relationship.

Oliver Colvile

When the parliamentarians came out and whilst it was not an official Government‑sponsored visit, you most certainly had obviously been very helpful in making sure that Mr MacKinlay and his colleagues had all the help they possibly could get. Did you then expect them to come back to the United Kingdom and go and talk to the Foreign Office and to ministers?

Sir Vincent Fean

Yes, and I am sure they did. Mr MacKinlay may have ceased his direct involvement, but I am sure there were debriefings in the Foreign Office with the Director Middle East and others. I do not want to leave an impression of false hope, but Mr MacKinlay is right in saying that those exchanges with the Libyan interlocutors in late 2009 were not negative; they were interrogative. It was the beginning of a process: the clarification of what the United Kingdom, in the shape of the victims, wanted and what Libya could or could not offer. It was not conclusive. I expected it to be part of a sequence of exchanges. I then left the scene in April 2010 and Gaddafi got into deep trouble in February 2011.

Oliver Colvile

Once the delegation had come back to the UK and spoken to the Foreign Office and ministers, did you get any other instructions that came out from the Foreign Office towards you?

Sir Vincent Fean

I do not have a specific recollection, but I know that the message was that this issue was alive. This was not the end of the process; this was not the end of the road. There was a requirement, if I remember correctly, on the part of the participants to consult with the legal representatives of the victims and to see where to go next. There had been no discussion of specific amounts in that first visit. The issue, therefore, was very open and there was a debate, I think I recall, about whether the next step should be to try to encourage some investment from Libya into Northern Ireland, infrastructure investment, as a means of consolidating the relationships that had just begun.

Kate Hoey

How often did you meet Moussa Koussa during your time as Ambassador and how well did you know him?

Sir Vincent Fean

He had two jobs in my time. He was the Head of the CIA, as Mr MacKinlay said. Subsequently, he became Foreign Minister. My relationship with the Libyan equivalent of the CIA was limited but, as Mr MacKinlay said, he was an important figure, one of those few that I mentioned who was both willing to talk to foreigners and very influential with—

Kate Hoey

So, he talked to you.

Sir Vincent Fean

Yes.

Kate Hoey

Would you broadly agree with Mr MacKinlay’s analysis of the kind of person he was, in terms of his background and links with terrorism?

Sir Vincent Fean

I remember that he was expelled from the UK for boasting about terrorist acts, not personally conducted, I do not think, in the 1990s.

Kate Hoey

Where were you on 30 March 2011? What post were you in then?

Sir Vincent Fean

I would have been in Jerusalem, I think.

Kate Hoey

Did you hear at the time, did anyone give you a call, as the former ambassador, to tell you that he had landed in Farnborough?

Sir Vincent Fean

No.

Kate Hoey

You knew nothing about it.

Sir Vincent Fean

No. I knew what was in the media.

Kate Hoey

Looking back on it now or at the time, were you surprised that he was allowed to leave after three days?

Sir Vincent Fean

I cannot really comment, to be honest with you, because I was out of that picture.

Kate Hoey

Once you go to another country you do not really get involved at all.

Sir Vincent Fean

You are full‑time on the day job.

Chair

Does it sound surprising, though, to hear it now?

Sir Vincent Fean

It was a time of great flux in Libya. That is all I would say.

Kate Hoey

Yes, but the person had not changed. He had been expelled from the country not long before. He comes back in. This was our opportunity. Does it not surprise you that people did not say, “Great, he is back in now. We can find out an awful lot about what is going on”?

Sir Vincent Fean

I really cannot comment.

Kate Hoey

I understand that. Just tell me who would have made that decision. Would the decision have been made at Prime Minister‑level that he should be allowed to leave Farnborough after three days?

Sir Vincent Fean

I do not know.

Kate Hoey

As a diplomat of long‑standing, you must know who would have made that decision. Would it have got to the Prime Minister’s level?

Sir Vincent Fean

I really do not know.

Kate Hoey

Would it have got to William Hague’s level, the Foreign Office?

Sir Vincent Fean

I cannot say, because I do not know.

Kate Hoey

You are being very diplomatic, just as you were very diplomatic about the frustration about the previous Prime Minister Tony Blair. I felt you were being very diplomatic. Thank you very much.

Chair

I am afraid we are out of time and we will have to, for the reasons I gave, close the session. So many issues have come up, it may be we want to invite you to help us again, but we will come back to you on that. For now, though, thank you very much indeed, Sir Vincent.

Sir Vincent Fean

Thank you. Oral evidence: HM Government support for UK victims of IRA attacks that used Gaddafi-supplied Semtex and Weapons, HC 406 21