DETAILS of a UK government report assessing possible compensation for victims of 'Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism' could be revealed later this month.
MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee have issued a formal summons to its author William Shawcross to appear before it on March 24 after there was no response to previous invitations.
Mr Shawcross was appointed in March 2019 to examine whether compensation payments to victims of IRA attacks funded by former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (Qadhafi) could be paid from the country's assets frozen in the UK.
His report was submitted to the Foreign Office in May 2020.
In his letter of summons, committee chair Simon Hoare said despite "repeated public and private correspondence and Written and Oral Parliamentary Questions", the Foreign Office has "taken no substantive action and is apparently determined to suppress your report and the matter".
If Mr Shawcross - appointed in January to review the government's anti-radicalisation programme Prevent - does not appear he could potentially be `in contempt of Parliament'.
"Given the time that has elapsed since both the terrorist events and the submission of his report to government is considerable, it is not an issue that is going to go away. There are victims who need and deserve justice," Mr Hoare said.
"The issuing of a summons has been very much an action of last resort agreed, unanimously, by the committee."
The committee, which has no power to call Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, is expected to question him on the detail of the report.
