BBC News Online: World: Middle East

Libya demands end to Lockerbie sanctions

The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has called on the United Nations Security Council to approve the immediate lifting of sanctions against Tripoli.

He said the sanctions were null and void, following the ruling of the International Court of Justice on Friday that it has jurisdiction to decide where Libyan suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing stand trial.

Mr Gaddafi also demanded compensation for what he described as the suffering that the sanctions had caused the Libyan people.

Britain and the United States had demanded the extradition of the two suspects in the December, 1988, bombing of an American airliner over Scotland which killed nearly 270 people.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service