Libya signs up to UN counter-terrorism accord

RABAT, July 31 (Reuters) Libya adopted a United Nations nuclear terrorism convention obliging governments to hunt down and punish those who unlawfully possess atomic devices, official news agency JANA said today.

Libya's General People's Committee agreed to the convention designed to eliminate unlawful possession of nuclear devices and materials by non-state actors.

The accord, approved by the UN General Assembly in 2005, requires governments to criminalise and investigate offences related to nuclear terrorism, share information and transfer detainees to help investigations and prosecutions abroad.

''The committee explained that the agreement is compatible with the aspirations of the Great Jamahiriya (Libya) following its historic initiative by voluntarily eliminating programmes and equipment that could lead to the production of internationally banned weapons,'' JANA said.

Libya took a new step towards normal relations with the West last week when it allowed six foreign medics to leave the country after eight years in prison on charges of infecting hundreds of children with HIV at a Libyan hospital.

The North African country emerged from decades of isolation in 2003 when it agreed to scrap a prohibited weapons programme and pay compensation for the bombing of a US airliner over Scotland in 1988 in which 270 people were killed.

Earlier this month, the United States announced it was sending its first ambassador to Tripoli in nearly 35 years.

Russia introduced the nuclear treaty in 1998 to keep ''loose nukes'' from falling into the hands of terrorist groups. Russia and other former Soviet republics have been cited as the most likely sources of black-market nuclear material.

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