Libya coughs up over UTA blast

2003-09-01 07:26

Tripoli - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has announced a compensation deal with the relatives of those killed in the bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger in 1989, removing the last obstacle to the lifting of United Nations sanctions against his country.

In a lengthy televised speech, Gaddafi said he had received a telephone call on Sunday from French President Jacques Chirac.

"President Chirac called me earlier... and we agreed to come to an understanding under the Gaddafi Foundation" to resolve the question of compensation, he said.

The charity foundation headed by Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, which negotiated the accord with the victims' families, said it was "a compromise formula that is satisfactory for all parties".

France would resolve the matter of Libyans sentenced in absentia for their part in the bombing.

The Libyan leader said: "We can say the UTA affair and the Lockerbie affair are now behind us and we are turning a page with France and the United States."

"The money is of little importance to us, we have our dignity."

Compensation has no link with government

In his speech on Sunday, Gaddafi said a number of foreign government officials had sought to persuade him recently to reached a settlement with France, including Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali and Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

The Gaddafi Foundation said it had reached the compromise after "numerous meetings and negotiations over the past year" with victims' families.

The foundation emphasised it had "no link with the Libyan state", saying the agreement was "with only the families of the victims of the French plane" and that it was "not related to what is going on at the UN concerning the lifting of sanctions" clamped on Libya since 1992.

Praising President Chirac, the statement said the agreement would also help find a solution to the problem of six Libyans handed sentences in absentia by a French court for their part in the downing of the UTA airliner.

The Libyan leader launched into a long explanation of Libya's position in his television appearance, assuring that Tripoli was not involved with the UTA or Lockerbie bombings.

"France knows it does not have the right to return to this affair; the dossier is closed," said Gaddafi.

"But President Chirac called me, he recalled that when he was prime minister in 1986 he banned the American aircraft that were going to bomb Libya from overflying France... and asked me to find a solution."

Families returned empty-handed from Tripoli last week, where they had flown on a French government aircraft hoping to strike a deal with Libya to pay additional compensation for the 1989 bombing of the UTA airliner.

France threatened a veto

Family representatives returned to Tripoli on Saturday to resume compensation talks, before flying out to Paris late on Sunday.

Libya recently agreed to pay $2.7bn in compensation to the families of the 270 people killed when a Pan Am jet exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, in an effort to get the international community to lift trade sanctions against Tripoli.

But France threatened to veto a British draft resolution lifting sanctions unless Tripoli agreed to pay the families of the 170 people who died in the bombing of the UTA DC10, also blamed on Libya, in light of the Lockerbie deal.

Libya initially termed the French demand "blackmail", but recently suggested that a compromise offer for the UTA families might be possible.

- AFP