Gaddafi vows to accept court's verdict

Col Gadaffi said he had "no connection" with bombing

Libyan Leader Colonel Gaddafi has promised to accept the judgement of the court which has begun trying two of his citizens for the Lockerbie bombing.

However, he warned that if the trial resulted in further investigations into the actions of Libyan officials or himself they would prove fruitless.

Expressing sympathy for the relatives of the 270 people killed in the 1988 disaster, he said he had "no connection" with the action and had no idea who the perpetrators were.

"I am sympathetic to all the relatives of all these victims and I pray for them

Colonel Gaddafi

Speaking before the trial got under way at a special international court in the Netherlands, he said: "All parties have agreed to accept the rule of the law, the rule of the court."

All 259 passengers and crew and 11 residents of the Scottish town of Lockerbie died when a Pan Am Boeing 747 airliner exploded in mid-air and crashed on 21 December, 1988.

The trial has been arranged under Scottish law, but with three judges instead of a jury, at a former United States Air Force base at Camp Zeist, near the Dutch city of Utrecht.

The camp has been designated part of Scottish territory for the duration of the trial, which could last more than a year.

Col Gaddafi: "I accept rule of law"

However, Col Gaddafi said that while he would accept the verdict of the Lockerbie trial judges, he did not believe this would mean further investigations into the actions of Libyan officials or himself.

The agreement under which the two defendants were handed over for trial was that the court would try them on the allegations concerned with the destruction of Flight 103

He warned: "If you go further than that we shall come to an endless chain."

He said the United States had many enemies and had committed "grisly" crimes and anyone seeking revenge against the US could have carried out the attack.

Col Gaddafi stressed that America had shot down an Iranian passenger airliner before the Lockerbie disaster, and added: "Those people who were killed by America, they have their own families and relatives, they may take revenge.

"This does not mean that Iran as a state or the Iranian Government is convicted or condemned."

Vowed to help find Yvonne Fletcher's killer

Col Gaddafi said he was "sympathetic" to all the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie disaster - along with the relatives of victims of the 1986 raid on Libya, and victims from Iran, Palestine and Lebanon.

"I am sympathetic to all the relatives of all these victims and I pray for them," he said.

"I have confidence that the problems of Lockerbie will come to an end and will be finished so that we will be turning over a chapter which has been with us ever since the Cold War."

Col Gaddafi then alleged: "It is a known fact that British intelligence recruited stooges for agents to assassinate me.

"And it is also a known story that the bomb that was thrown at me by an agent who was recruited by British intelligence."

He also pledged Libyan co-operation to find the killer of Pc Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot dead outside the Libyan People's Bureau in London in 1984.

Relations between Britain and Libya were now "good", he said.