VOA News
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
Britain's foreign secretary says the resignation of Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who traveled to London Wednesday, shows Moammar Gadhafi's government is “fragmented, under pressure and crumbling.”
William Hague added Thursday that Britain had not offered Koussa diplomatic immunity from British or international prosecution and that he was talking with British officials voluntarily. There are allegations that the Libyan diplomat was involved in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people.
Koussa traveled from Tunisia to London Wednesday and told British officials that he was resigning from his post in Gadhafi's government. British officials have urged Mr. Gadhafi's other supporters to desert him as well.
A Libyan government spokesman denied the foreign minister had defected, saying he is in Britain on a “diplomatic mission.” Libya's justice and interior ministers resigned early in the conflict and joined the rebels fighting in the east.
U.S. officials called Koussa's resignation “very significant” and an example of growing splits inside the Libyan government. The foreign minister has been a close confidant of Mr. Gadhafi and served as his intelligence chief for more than a decade.
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