Terrorism Libya

To prove to the world that the suspects are not dead and have not disappeared, as some U.S. intelligence sources speculated last week, the Libyan government on Tuesday paraded before invited Western reporters the two men accused by the United States and Britain in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The United States, Britain and France have decided to seek a U.N. Security Council resolution calling upon Libya to cooperate in bringing those responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to justice, State Department officials said Thursday night. According to U.S. sources, the proposed resolution probably will probably be presented to the Security Council next week. The resolution does not ask for the imposition of any economic sanctions against Libya.

Libya on Sunday denounced a Western deadline for handing over two men suspected in the Lockerbie bombing, and diplomats said the statement could lead to new sanctions against Moammar Kadafi's government. The United States, France and Britain said Friday that Libya would face further sanctions if it did not hand over the suspects by Oct. 1 for trial in the United States or Britain. The two men, alleged by the West to be Libyan intelligence agents, are suspects in the Dec.

Libyan intelligence agents may have assembled and planted the bomb that destroyed a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December, 1988, U.S. investigators said after studying newly uncovered evidence, according to a report in the New York Times. Until now, the inquiry has focused on evidence that Iran hired a Syrian-sponsored terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, to bomb the airliner.

Libya will try two men charged by U.S. and British authorities in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and will deliver the severest punishment--death--if they are guilty, Libya's foreign minister said Sunday. However, the official, Ibrahim Mohammed Bashari, said his government does not think the men are guilty. Earlier, an official in Libya's Information Ministry said the two Libyans went on trial Sunday, but he indicated that the proceeding was actually a hearing rather than a trial.

President Reagan, concerned about reports that Libya is building a plant to produce chemical weapons, told a television interviewer Wednesday that the United States is considering bombing the facility. It was not clear how imminent any U.S. action would be or how actively officials are considering such an option, however. During the interview with ABC-TV, Reagan was asked: "Are we going to bomb (Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi's) poison gas factory, and if not, why not?"

President Reagan on Wednesday extended for six months the U.S. trade and economic sanctions against Libya, accusing it of supporting terrorism. "The government of Libya continues to use and support international terrorism, in violation of international law and minimum standards of human behavior," Reagan said in a statement issued in Los Angeles, where he is vacationing. "Such Libyan actions and policies pose . . .