DANIEL HANNAN: LIVNI FACES PROSECUTION IN UK, MOUSSA KOUSSA HOPES FOR ASYLYM
Tzipi Livni Faces Prosecution in Britain, Moussa Koussa Hopes For Asylum
And Britain wonders why it is called perfidious. Daniel Hannan
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9189/pub_detail.asp
Unlike Augusto Pinochet, Koussa never made the mistake of supporting Britain.
When Augusto Pinochet was detained in Britain at the request of a Spanish prosecuting magistrate, I wrote a leader for this newspaper suggesting that, if he wanted to avoid prosecution, he need only claim asylum. It was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, but it may have put ideas in the head of Gaddafi’s repulsive security chief, Moussa Koussa.
Pinochet arrived in Britain as an ally who had supported us during the Falklands War. Koussa came as a foeman, implicated in the Lockerbie atrocity and accused of arming the IRA. Guess which one was arrested.
The Arabs have a saying that it is better to be the enemy of the British than their friend, for if you are their enemy they might try to buy you, whereas if you are their friend they can only sell you. I’ve always thought this aphorism unfounded: colonisation is never much fun for the colonised, but most Arabs got a fairer deal from us than from the Turks, the French or the Italians. None the less, there are moments when we seem to be going out of our way to attract a reputation for perfidy.
Never mind Pinochet: ally or not, he was a harsh and corrupt autocrat. How have we reached the stage where Tzipi Livni, a democratic, centrist politician, cannot visit Britain for fear of arrest, but the henchmen of bloody Arab tyrants can come and go as they please, delivering lectures at the LSE while their wives shop at Harrods?
And where are all the human rights lawyers who are forever threatening to serve warrants on Donald Rumsfeld, Israeli generals, Margaret Thatcher and so on? What are they waiting for?
While we’re about it, remind me exactly what our national interest in Libya is? To the extent that we have one, it has to do with prosecuting the crimes committed against us by the regime of which Koussa was a leader. If we’re now talking about giving him asylum, what the devil are we doing there?
UPDATE: William Hague has just told the House of Commons that Moussa Koussa will have no immunity, that the police will be allowed to question him about Lockerbie, and that HMG (Her Majesty’s Government) will do nothing to prejudice such investigations. I withdraw my criticism.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Daniel Hannan is a British writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the EU is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free. He is the winner of the Bastiat Award for online journalism.
You can find this online at: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9189/pub_detail.asp
The views expressed in the articles published in FamilySecurityMatters.org are those of the authors. These views should not be construed as the views of FamilySecurityMatters.org or of the Family Security Foundation, Inc., as an attempt to help or prevent the passage of any legislation, or as an intervention in any political campaign for public office.
Comments are closed.
