Reports today that Muammar Gadhafi might stay at a Libyan government-owned mansion in Englewood, N.J. when he comes to the United States next month for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly has led Sen. Frank Lautenberg to request that the State Department place travel restrictions on the Libyan leader limiting him to the United Nations Headquarters District in New York City and keeping him out of Lautenberg’s home state. The senator writes to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Given the recent release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people including 189 Americans, and the welcome he received upon his return to Libya, allowing Colonel Qaddafi to travel freely in the U.S. would be an affront to the families of the Pan Am 103 victims.
Lautenberg said in a separate statement earlier in the day that Gadhafi "is not weclome here." Reuters reports that the Englewood property is next door to a Jewish school and a rabbi. Gadhafi would likely not stay in the house on the property, but, as is his custom, pitch a Bedouin tent on the site. Lautenberg’s full letter is here.
