Libya slams France's 'blackmail'

2003-08-15 21:59

Ndjamena - Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Raman Shalgham accused France on Friday of blackmail after Paris threatened to block an agreement on lifting UN sanctions unless more money was paid to the families of victims of the bombing of a French airliner in 1989.

"France is using pressure and blackmail and we do not accept this," said Shalgham, adding that his government had made its position clear to French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Libya has agreed to pay out $2.7bn to the families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in exchange for a gradual lifting of international sanctions.

Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21 of that yaer, killing all 259 people on board the jumbo and 11 on the ground.

But France has made clear it wants similar compensation for the families of the 170 people who died when an airliner operated by the UTA company was blown out of the sky by a bomb over the Sahara Desert on September 19, 1989.

US officials in Washington expressed outrage at the French reservations, and said Paris had threatened to use its veto at the UN Security Council to block a resolution lifting sanctions against Libya.

'Complementary settlement'

Libya has already paid $33m in compensation for the UTA bombing, in what Tripoli and Paris both described last October as "a definitive resolution" of the matter.

But the French foreign ministry insisted on Thursday that a "complementary settlement" should now be made in light of the Lockerbie deal, suggesting Paris would otherwise block the lifting of sanctions.

Herve Ladsous, a spokesperson for the ministry, said extra compensation for the UTA families "constitutes for France an indispensable condition for the permanent lifting of sanctions against Libya".

Families of the British victims of the Lockerbie bombing on Friday condemned the French government's position.

"If they exercise their veto and further delay compensation to the relatives who live in 21 different nations, I think they will have done a serious disservice to the name of France," said David Ben Aryeah, a spokesperson for the British families.

In January 2001, a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, one of two Libyan agents charged with the bombing, and sentenced him to life in prison.

- AFP