Bill Rammell signs five agreements with Libya.
17 Nov 2008
Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell signs four bilateral agreements and a Double Taxation Convention with Libyan counterpart, Abdulatti al-Obidi.Mr Rammell and his Libyan counterpart will today conclude a set of bilateral judicial agreements agreed under a 2007 Memorandum of Understanding. A Double Taxation Convention will also be signed. Mr Rammell said:
“I will today sign four bilateral agreements with my Libyan counterpart, Abdulatti al-Obidi, which will strengthen our judicial ties, as agreed during Tony Blair’s visit to Libya in May last year. In addition, we are signing today a Double Taxation Convention which will bring benefits to British business in Libya and Libyan investors in the UK - benefits in terms of certainty, clarity and transparency and reducing tax compliance burdens. We are also in the final stages of negotiating an agreement to protect and promote investment.
“UK/Libya relations have significantly improved in recent years, following Libya’s voluntary renunciation of WMD. Today we are partners in the UN Security Council. We also wish to assist Libya to establish closer relations with the European Union to continue and strengthen the reintegration of Libya within the international community. We therefore support the commencement of negotiations between Libya and the EU on a framework agreement which should cover a range of issues including political, social, economic, commercial and cultural relations between the EU and Libya.”
Further information
1. The United Kingdom will sign four judicial agreements with Libya today on prisoner transfer, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, mutual legal assistance in civil and commercial matters, and extradition following a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Tony Blair and Colonel Qadhafi in May 2007. A Double Taxation Convention will also be signed.
2. The agreements will be signed in London with the Foreign Office Minister of State Bill Rammell representing the UK and Libya represented by Secretary for European Affairs, Abdulatti al-Obidi.
3. UK relations with Libya were transformed following Libya’s renunciation of its weapons of mass destruction programme in December 2003.
4. The Civil and Commercial Agreement aims to facilitate cooperation between the UK and Libya Courts on civil and commercial matters and the Agreements on Mutual Legal Assistance and Extradition provide necessary tools to combat the increasingly trans-national nature of crime. The Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) allows the return of a prisoner to serve out his sentence in his home country where both jurisdictions are in agreement. Prisoners do not have an automatic right to transfer; the consent of the authorities in both states is required before transfer can take place.
5. No individual can be transferred under the PTA signed today until all criminal proceedings in relation to that individual have been exhausted.
Double Taxation Conventions aim to eliminate the double taxation of income or gains arising in one country and paid to residents of the other country.
UKinLibya.fco.gov.uk
