LIBYA has agreed to let a French magistrate travel to Tripoli to pursue his investigation into the mid-air bombing of a French airliner in 1989.

Investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere left for Tripoli today to question four suspects, including a brother-in-law of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Bruguiere, who specialises in terrorism cases, is probing the September 19, 1989 destruction of a French UTA airlines DC-8 aircraft over the Sahara desert in which 170 people were killed.

``Libya has recently advised it was prepared to co-operate in principle within the framework of our requests and to welcome Judge Bruguiere,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Jacques Rummelhardt told reporters. Tripoli had turned him away in 1992 when he arrived aboard a French warship.

The UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Libya, including a ban on flights, over its refusal to turn over suspects in the UTA blast and in the 1988 explosion of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people.

Libya says the Lockerbie suspects cannot get a fair trial in either Britain or the United States.

Bruguiere issued warrants in 1991 for the arrest of the four Libyans including Abdallah Senoussi, who is Gaddafi's brother-in-law and identified by Paris as a senior intelligence official.

The others were named as Abdallah Elazragh, a diplomat working in Brazzaville at the time, and alleged secret agents Ibrahim Naeli and Musbah Arbas.

French officials recalled that Libya, like France, did not extradite its own nationals, indicating that Paris now believed it unlikely they would be tried in France.

It was not immediately clear if they would then be tried in France in their absence or if Paris would ask a Libyan court to try them.

France remained committed to UN sanctions against Tripoli, and Washington and London had been informed of Bruguiere's trip, officials said.

Meanwhile, a UN sanctions committee warned today that flights which took Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to and from an Arab summit in Cairo last month violated sanctions.

It warned it would consider recommending tougher curbs if there was any repetition.

JOHANNESBURG: Dr Jim Swire, father of one of the British Lockerbie victims, has asked South Africa to set up a meeting with Gaddafi.

Dr Swire sent his request to President Nelson Mandela after learning of an invitation to Gaddafi to visit South Africa. Foreign affairs spokesman Enrico Kemp said no final decision had been taken.

No date has been set for a visit by the Libyan leader, who has warm ties with the African National Congress owing to his help for the movement under apartheid.-Reuter.