Next week Sir Vincent Fean, KCVO, is scheduled to give evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Sir Vincent was educated at Saint Theodore’s Roman Catholic High School and the University of Sheffield and speaks Arabic. According to the  Oxford Research Group , the retired ambassador is particularly interested in Libya’s future.

On 8 June 2008, he wrote to Tony Blair , re the talks between Libya and the USA, in the following terms:

“HMG is not involved in the talks , although some British Citizens might be affected by them [Lockerbie plus some Northern Irish litigants].

It remains a UK objective to promote the City of London as a safe and profitable place for Libya to invest its Sovereign Wealth Fund through the Libyan Investment Authority, which  we hope will open a London office this year.”

He then went on to extol the virtues of selling some arms to Gadafy, a contract worth £400 million  to the UK .

When Sir Vincent appears I will be interested to hear him respond to the following questions.

1. Having established that Gadafy funded the IRA and provided the Semtex which killed hundreds in the UK, was it OK to be his friend?
2. Having known about Gadafy’s human rights abuses, was he satisfied that the money to be invested was not stolen from Gadafy’s subjects?
3. When is money the proceeds of crime and when is it legitimate, or does that depend on which arms company is twisting the Ambassador’s arm?

Small chocolate, anyone?