During a visit called ill-advised by the U.S. government, Louis Farrakhan met Sunday with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and discussed "issues confronting the Islamic world," news reports said.
The Nation of Islam leader met Gadhafi one day after arriving in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and urging the lifting of U.N. sanctions against the North African country, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported.Farrakhan said the sanctions were "tantamount to a weapon of mass destruction," state-run Libyan television said in a report monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. in London.
The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Libya in April 1992 to try to force Gadhafi to turn over two Libyans wanted in the 1988 explosion of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. The crash killed 270 people.
The sanctions limit diplomatic contacts with Libya, ban air travel to and from the country, freeze some foreign assets and forbid the sale of some oil equipment.
Gadhafi has proposed that the suspects be tried in a "neutral country," a move both the United States and Britain oppose.
Farrakhan earlier stopped in Iraq, where he condemned U.N. sanctions against that country. Iraq has been under U.N. sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The sanctions ban most oil sales, severely damaging the Iraqi economy.
U.S. State Department officials urged Farrakhan, who is on a 52-nation tour, to avoid Libya and Iraq, saying his visit could be used for anti-American propaganda.
It was Farrakhan's fourth visit to Libya in two years. He last visited in January 1997, when he and Gadhafi led a joint prayer service. He also visited Libya in January and September 1996 amid controversy over Gadhafi pledges of funds for Farrakhan projects.
Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department barred Farrakhan from accepting a $250,000 prize he was awarded by Gadhafi for his human rights work.