SCOTTISH prosecutors and police have interviewed the former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa in connection with the Lockerbie bombing.

The move came three days after talks involving the Crown Office, three Dumfries and Galloway police officers and the Foreign Office to decide when they would be able to question Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi’s former right-hand man about the 1988 terrorist outrage that claimed 270 lives.

Koussa, 61, who defected to the UK last week, may hold vital clues to who ordered the bombing.

It emerged last night that the prosecutors have now been able to speak to Koussa, who is believed to be in a Government safehouse. He has not been offered diplomatic immunity.

Neither the Crown Office nor the Foreign Office could last night formally provide details on the questioning, where it had taken place, or whether they would be returning to speak to the former head of the Libyan intelligence service.

However, sources told The Herald it was likely the meeting, which had been due to take place this week, was held in London.

It came after Foreign Secretary William Hague said Koussa would be encouraged to “co-operate fully with all requests for interviews with law enforcement and inves- tigation authorities” about Lock- erbie and other issues stemming from Libya’s past sponsorship of terrorism.

The Crown had described its pre-interview discussions in Whitehall as positive but had declined to provide further details of its inquiries in order to preserve the “integrity” of the Lockerbie investigation.

There was no immediate reaction to the development from campaigners such as Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 259 victims on board Pan Am Flight 103 after it exploded above the Dumfries-shire town on December 21, 1988. A further 11 people were killed on the ground by debris.

This week, Gaddafi’s son, Saif al Islam, claimed Koussa would be of little assistance to the inquiry.

He said: “The British and the Americans … they know about Lockerbie. There are no secrets any more.”

Libyan Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al Megrahi is the only person ever to be convicted over the attack.