This DAY IN History

17th November

ON THIS DAY IN 1991, AMERICAN AND BRITISH AUTHORITIES ANNOUNCED INDICTMENTS AGAINST TWO LIBYAN INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DOWNING OF THE PAN AM FLIGHT 103 OVER LOCKERBIE, SCOTLAND IN 1988 WHICH RESULTED IN THE DEATH OF ALL 243 PASSENGERS AND 16 CREW MEMBERS ON BOARD

After a three-year joint investigation by Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and the US FBI, during which 15,000 witness statements were taken, indictments for murder were issued on 13 November 1991 against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, the LAA station manager in Luqa Airport, Malta.
UN sanctions against Libya and protracted negotiations with Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi secured the handover of the accused on 5 April 1999 to Scottish police at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, which was selected as a neutral venue for their trial.
Both of the accused chose not to give evidence in court.
On 31 January 2001, Megrahi was convicted of murder by a panel of three Scottish judges, and sentenced to life imprisonment, but Fhimah was acquitted.
Megrahi's appeal against his conviction was refused on 14 March 2002, and his application to the European Court of Human Rights was declared inadmissible in July 2003.
On 23 September 2003, Megrahi applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) for his conviction to be reviewed, and on 28 June 2007, the SCCRC announced its decision to refer the case to the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh after it found he "may have suffered a miscarriage of justice".
Megrahi served just over 10 years of his sentence (beginning 5 April 1999), first in Barlinnie prison, Glasgow, and later in Greenock prison, Renfrewshire, throughout which time he maintained that he was innocent of the charges against him.
He was released from prison on compassionate grounds on 20 August 2009.
In October 2015, Scottish prosecutors announced that they wanted to interview two Libyan nationals, whom they had identified as new suspects, over the bombing.
On the 21st December 2020, the 32nd anniversary of the disaster, the United States attorney general announced that Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, a Libyan national in custody in Libya, had been charged with terrorism-related crimes in connection with the bombing, accusing him of involvement in constructing the bomb.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY IS A HISTORYDESK TV PRODUCTION

17th November

ON THIS DAY IN 1993, CHIARMAN OF NIGERIA’S JOINTS CHIEFS OF STAFF, GENERAL SANI ABACHA OVERTHREW THE CIVILIAN INTERIM NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHIEF ERNEST SHONEKAN IN A MILITARY COUP IN ABUJA

Gen. Abacha, being the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs Of Staff, (Minister of Defence) was the most senior official within the military hierarchy and was also in complete control of the Military following the departure of erstwhile military leader, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.
Gen. Abacha forced the interim president, Chief Shonekan to hand over.
In his nationwide broadcast, Abacha cited the socio-political uncertainties under the Interim National Government as a cause of Chief Shonekan’s resignation but in truth, Chief Shonekan never resigned, he was forced to sign his resignation.

Gen. Abacha ruled as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with iron fist.
In September 1994, he issued a decree that placed his government above the jurisdiction of the courts effectively giving him absolute power.
Another decree gave him the right to detain anyone for up to three months without trial. He further abrogated Decree 691 of 1993.
Abacha assembled a personal security force of 3,000 men trained in North Korea; and the Nigeria Police Force underwent a large scale retraining.

The state cracked down ruthlessly on individual groups and dissident elements including the National Democratic Coalition.
Regardless of the human rights abuses interestingly the economy blossomed.
Abacha's administration oversaw an increase in the country's foreign exchange reserves from $494 million in 1993 to $9.6 billion by the middle of 1997, and reduced the external debt of Nigeria from $36 billion in 1993 to $27 billion by 1997.
Abacha brought the privatisation programs of the Ibrahim Babangida administration to a halt, reduced an inflation rate of 54% inherited from Ernest Shonekan to 8.5% between 1993 and 1998, all while the nation's primary commodity, oil was at an average of $15 per barrel.
GDP growth, despite being estimated to be higher than the 2.2% growth in 1995, was largely limited to the petroleum sector.
His administration came to a halt following his death in a highly mysterious circumstance in June of 1998 and his Chief Of Defence Staff, Maj. Gen. Abdulsami Abubakar took over the governance of Nigeria and eventually ushered Nigeria into democracy in 1999.


THIS DAY IN HISTORY IS A HISTORYDESK TV PRODUCTION