Legal moves to secure a multi-million compensation package from Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy for the victims of IRA violence in Northern Ireland have been put on hold, a lawmaker said today.
Northern Irish MPs opened up talks with Tripoli in 2009 in an effort to secure compensation on behalf of a 160-strong group of victims. Gadafy supplied arms to the IRA during its decades of armed struggle against British rule.
Lawyers representing the group have had a number of meetings with Libyan authorities and were preparing for a fresh meeting with Gadafy's son Saif Al-Islam last month when the bloody revolt broke out in the Arab country, the DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson said.
"Everything is on hold. Our legal team have indicated the discussions with the Gadafy regime are not continuing and will not resume until there is another government in place," said Mr Donaldson.
Lawyers are also looking at the possibility of securing Gadafy assets frozen by the British government last week if the compensation bid ultimately proves fruitless, he added.
"That would be another option if discussions with a new government in Tripoli proved difficult.It would have to be through a civil action against Gadafy in the British courts - I doubt he would turn up to defend it."
The victims group -- which acted after Libyan authorities paid $1.5 billion to a US compensation fund for victims of the 1988 Lockerbie mid-air plane bombing -- have not put a figure on the amount of compensation they are seeking.
Reuters