GPC Welcomes French Court’s Decision

Panafrican News Agency (Dakar), 23 March 2001

Sirte, Libya—Libya’s General People’s Congress (the country’s highest legislative body) has commended the high court in French for resisting pressure from what it described as Zionist circles and forces at the service of injustice.

The Paris Court of Cessation, which is the highest French legal organ, on 13 March, decided to close a case whose sole target was the leader of the Libyan Revolution, Col. Muammar Kadhafi.

Opened in 1999, the case had aimed at accusing Kadhafi in connection with a UTA DC-10 plane crash.

In a statement issued in Sirte late Thursday at the end of its annual conference, the General People’s Congress pointed out that the ruling of the Paris Court was an illustration of objectivity and refusal to give in to pressure by the French justice system.

The Congress denounced the imprisonment of Libyan national, Abdelbasset Al-Maghrahi, who was given a life sentence by the Zeist Camp court, in connection with the Lockerbie case.

Reaffirming that the Libyan national was rather the hostage of a political trial, the Congress made an impassioned appeal to all international organisations and human rights associations throughout the world, to combine their efforts to defend this man’s just cause as he has been a victim of injustice.

The Congress said that imprisonment of Al-Maghrahi is a flagrant violation of justice, likely to seriously affect international relations.

Furthermore, the Congress praised all countries, which have expressed solidarity with Libya and called for the lifting, once and for all, of the coercive sanctions imposed on the Libyan people.