Minister to help victims of Libyan-backed IRA

SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT VICTIMS of IRA atrocities are stepping up a campaign for compensation, as ministers pledge to back them.

They want damages from the new regime in Libya, after it supplied semtex to the IRA in Col Gaddafi’s time.

There were fears that a deal between Tony Blair and Gaddafi had blocked multimillion-pound payouts. Conflict in Libya has also meant until now there was no regime there to contact.

But a UN-brokered deal between rival groups in Libya means talks on securing money for British victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA attacks will be reopened.

Tobias Ellwood, a Foreign Office minister, said he had raised the case with prime minister-designate Fayez elSarraj and would meet victims soon. The development comes amid a row over Mr Blair’s involvement: he has refused to give evidence to a Commons committee on compensation for IRA victims, insisting that claims he tried to block the payments were “without foundation”.

Mr Ellwood said he was set on progress: “I am planning to facilitate bringing the victims’ groups and the Libyan authorities together. It is for the Libyans themselves to say whether or not there would be a case for a request for compensation.”

The Government has warned victims to be “realistic” on the scale and timing of any deal. William Frazer, from one group, said: “It has never been about the money. It is the principle.”

Under Gaddafi, Libya paid £1 billion to US victims of Libyan terror attacks in 2008 but Britons were excluded.