Does Libya really possess cluster munitions?

UPDATE: 1 June 2011 – See later articles for updates

UPDATE: 23 July 2011 – We’re still waiting for the Spanish government to produce the cluster bomb licenses, proof of export and end-user certificates. More here and here

 

More on the evidence Libya possessed cluster munitions:

HRI has located the original source of the Spanish media reports quoted as the basis by Amnesty International for the assumption that Libya possessed the MAT-120.

The original article was published on solidaridad.net on 15th September 2008, written by Javier L. Noriega.
Author: Javier L. Noriega-Date: 2008-09-15 http://www.solidaridad.net/noticias.php?not=5282

The specific passage in this report is,

Instalaza, por su parte, no quiso hacer declaraciones al respecto, pero puede ser la principal perjudicada.
En la última legislatura, el Gobierno compró varios lotes de sus granadas de mortero MAT-120 y, además, aprobó dos contratos de exportación de este material a Finlandia y Libia.

Translation:
In the last parliament, the government purchased several lots of mortar MAT-120 and also approved two contracts for export of this material to Finland and Libya.

The report is unsourced. All we know from the Javier Noriega’s report is that the source is not Instalaza:

Oficialmente, el fabricante Instalaza no hace ningún tipo de declaraciones sobre las bombas de racimo.
Translation:
Officially, the manufacturer Instalaza makes no statements on cluster munitions.

It should also be noted that the Spanish Defence Ministry has denied any knowledge of the export of MAT-120 to Libya, which seems highly unusual, even if they are not responsible for the actual decision to export.:

Al respecto, el Ministerio de Defensa no tiene constancia del armamento está utilizando el régimen libio

The Spanish Government’s Report on the statistics of the export of military goods for 2007 had come out at the beginning of July 2008.

Relevant extracts from the Report:

From Annex II – Authorised Exports – licenses by country
A few of the most interesting ones:
Qatar, 6 licences, 1,177,299 euros
USA, 61 licences, 159,585,721
UAE, 2 licences, 0 value
Libya, 3 licences, 3,823,500
Finland, 5 licences, 10,796
UK, 39 licenses, 58,173,209
Israel, 22 licenses, 4,365,309

Category 4 (Covering bombs, missiles etc) Authorised exports 2007
A few of the most relevant ones:
Qatar, 1,149,550
USA, 1,885,959
Finland, 0 value
Libya, 3,823,500
UAE, 0 value
UK, 1,785,000
Israel, 0 value
(The ‘0’s indicate licences were issued but with no Euro value, perhaps as they were part of a larger contract)

So the assumption the MAT-120 was licensed to Libya is just an assumption – actually Spain issued licences in Category 4 to:
Argentina, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Qatar, Slovenia (0), Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, United Kingdom, United States

UPDATE: 1 June 2011 – See later articles for updates

UPDATE: 23 July 2011 – We’re still waiting for the Spanish government to produce the cluster bomb licenses, proof of export and end-user certificates. More here and here