Berlin Confirms ‘Unnatural’ Death of Libyan

WEST BERLIN — Police today confirmed the “unnatural death” of a former Libyan diplomat. A newspaper quoted sources as saying he was killed in an East Berlin park by agents of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadafi.

West Berlin police spokesman Dieter Piete said the Libyan Embassy in Bonn contacted police May 14 to retrieve personal property left in West Berlin by Mohammed Ashour.

Piete said the embassy contacted West Berlin police shortly after Ashour died “an unnatural death” in East Berlin. He did not say how Ashour died.

The Bonn-based Die Welt newspaper quoted sources in the General Union of Libyan Students in West Germany, an anti-Kadafi group, as saying Ashour was shot to death in an East Berlin park “for political reasons on the night of May 2-3.”

Cover-Up Hinted

The newspaper said Ashour, 41, was killed by Kadafi agents, possibly to cover up a Libyan role in the April 5 bombing of the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin, which killed a U.S. soldier and a Turkish woman and wounded 230 others.

Die Welt said Berlin police are investigating whether Ashour’s killing was motivated by fear that he had learned the identities of the discotheque bombers from contacts in Libya’s East Berlin embassy.

The newspaper also quoted its sources as saying there was a shoot-out at Libya’s East Berlin embassy Monday between supporters and foes of attempts to use the embassy as a planning center for attacks against Kadafi’s enemies.

The newspaper gave no details on the alleged shoot-out.