Tripoli Gets a Deadline : Security Council gives Kadafi until April 15 to cough up suspects

Last January members of the U.N. Security Council unanimously called on Libya to hand over for trial in Britain or the United States two indicted suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. This week, faced with Libyan stonewalling, the council voted to impose sanctions on Col. Moammar Kadafi’s regime.

It was the most significant U.N. step yet taken against international terrorism. But it almost didn’t happen: Only 10 of the 15 members supported the punitive measures. China, India, Morocco, Zimbabwe and Cape Verde--lobbied vigorously by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic States--abstained from voting, arguing that mediation should be given more time.

More time, though, would only permit more stalling, allowing Libya to embellish its claim that the sanctions are a Western “plot” not just against one country but the whole of the Arab and, indeed, Islamic world. That line is going to be widely disseminated anyway, with the sympathetic endorsement of even some Arab governments that proclaim their friendship with Washington.

The coldblooded murder of 270 people, 189 of them Americans, is hardly something to be mediated or plea-bargained. Meticulously gathered evidence points to Libya’s culpability, possibly--if as yet unprovably--with the connivance of Iran and Syria. If the concept of international law means anything, this crime must be exposed in a reputable court and those behind it must be punished.

Punishment for Libya under the U.N. resolution could for now prove more inconvenient than economically devastating. If Kadafi does not hand over the two suspects by April 15 and renounce and cease to support “all forms of terrorist action,” members of the United Nations will be required to sever air links with Libya, halt sales of aircraft and spare parts, and prohibit all weapons transfers.

Libya’s oil trade, its chief source of income, wouldn’t be embargoed. But cutting air links and the resolution’s call to shrink Libya’s foreign diplomatic missions should go a long way to deepen its international isolation. That at least would be a start toward achieving a measure of justice for a monstrous crime.