Lockerbie money starts moving
2003-08-20 18:46
Washington - Libya on Wednesday began transferring $2.7bn into an escrow account at the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) that will be used to compensate the families of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, a US official said.
"The BIS has confirmed to us that the Libyans have begun to transfer the funds," the official said.
The official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the Basel, Switzerland-based bank could not say how long the transfer would take but expected it to be completed by Thursday.
"Because of the large amount involved, it may not all be able to be deposited today," the official said. "It could take until tomorrow (Thursday) before it's all in."
Last week, Libya agreed to a compensation deal under which it will pay up to $10m to each of the Lockerbie families, with the first payment of $4m to be released once UN sanctions against it are lifted.
On Friday, Libya accepted responsibility for the December 21, 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in a letter to the UN Security Council, paving the way for the sanctions to be lifted.
Britain then proposed a Security Council resolution that would remove the sanctions, which is expected to be voted on shortly, despite French resistance to the proposal.
However, a US State Department official said the vote, which had been expected as early as Thursday, might be delayed due to the more pressing matter of dealing with the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.
"We still expect that vote to occur soon," the official said.
Other officials said the need to address the Baghdad bombing quickly had weakened the US and British position with regard to France in the Lockerbie matter.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin on Wednesday to ask Paris - which vehemently opposed the Iraq war - to give its full backing to the UN mission in Baghdad, one official said.
In an effort to secure that support, US officials said they would not immediately launch a campaign criticizing France for its threat to block the lifting of the Libya sanctions.
"One consequence of the bombing in Baghdad is that it buys the French a little more time on Libya," one official said.
France has threatened to veto the Lockerbie resolution unless Libya boosts the amount of compensation it is paying to the families of the 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger.
The French foreign ministry has said repeatedly that Tripoli must offer equivalent compensation for both bombings, despite having agreed to a deal in 1999 in which Libya would pay a total of only $33m to the UTA families.
The United States has reacted angrily to the French threats, and on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher lashed out at France's objections, calling them "last minute" and "extraneous."
He also suggested that France was being hypocritical by pointedly noting that it had informed the United Nations in 1999 that with regard to the UTA bombing, Libya had met the requirements for the UN sanctions to be lifted.
US officials said that reference was the opening salvo of what officials said would be a harsh campaign against Paris should it go ahead and block the British resolution.
But one official said on Wednesday that the events in Baghdad had temporarily changed those plans.
"We're not going to be enacting that strategy, at least not yet, because we need French support on Iraq," the official said.