New York Local News

ENGLEWOOD, N.J. (CBS) ― While new revelations about the release of the Lockerbie bomber has local families outraged, residents in New Jersey are upset that Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi could soon be setting up shop in a Bergen County mansion.

"I'm mortified, I'm embarrassed as an American, I'm upset as a Jew," Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes said.

There's outrage in Englewood over the man who is set to stay at a house currently under heavy construction.

"I've heard that Qaddafi is trying to move into Englewood," resident Anat Joseph said.

"It's a possibility," Englewood Police Chief Arthur O'Keefe said. "We're making preparations for that possibility."

"He shouldn't be here," one resident said. "He's not welcome here."

Qaddafi recently welcomed convicted terrorist and Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi into Libya after his controversial release from a Scottish prison.

"I think we've been very nonchalant toward official people that may sponsor terrorism," Joseph said.

The Libyan strongman is expected to stay at the home on East Palisade Drive, living in his trademark air-conditioned tent out on the lawn. Qaddafi will be in New York attending the UN General Assembly meetings next month.

So why, of all places, would he decide to set up camp in Englewood, and why that particular house?

Town officials say the Libyan government has owned the home for more than 25 years, but have been exempt from paying taxes on it.

Qaddafi usually constructs his tent on UN property, but that area is under construction. Libya asked New York officials if he could put the tent up in Central Park, but that was nixed.

"He shouldn't be setting his shoes on US Soil, let alone sleeping in my city limits," Mayor Wildes said.

Mayor Wildes is vehemently opposed to the idea, saying that security preparations for such a visit would be enormous. He's even calling for protests, slated for the end of the month.

For the record, the State Department says that no decision has been made on where President Qaddafi will "pitch his tent."

Family members were outraged that convicted Libyan bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released.

"I was furious and I was sick," Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora, then 20, died on the flight.

Cohen reserved some of her anger toward the Obama administration as well.

Thursday, President Obama called the release of Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi after serving eight years of a minimum 27-year sentence in Scottish prison, a "mistake."

Cohen called Mr. Obama's remark "soft," during an interview with CBS' "The Early Show" Friday, adding that she has pushed the president to do more.

There is "no one even in prison for the crime," she said.

Cohen and other relatives said they believe al-Megrahi was released to appease Qaddafi because access to his nation's oil is so important.

"Look what we've come to be, a man blows up an American plane and now here he (Qaddafi) is rolling into New York in triumph," she said, adding sarcastically, "That's wonderful. Makes the world safer, doesn't it?"

Cohen, of Cape May Court House, N.J., said the release is a major concession to Qaddafi, who she said wields increasing power through lucrative oil contracts with Western nations. Cohen, like several victims' family members, said she's disappointed that President Barack Obama's administration is not taking a harder line.

"The fact is, every time this kind of appeasement happens, it really endangers the innocent public," Cohen said. "What would any terrorist think looking at this? How scared would you be?"

 

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