Libya Inks French Jet Bombing Deal
Libya on Friday signed a $170 million compensation accord with families of victims of a 1989 French passenger jet bombing, bringing closure to years of grief.
The deal — which came 14 years after the bombing of the French UTA passenger plane over the Niger desert that killed 170 people — also was expected to open the way to a new era of ties between Tripoli and Paris.
Applause broke out after the agreement was signed by a representative of victims' relatives, Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, and the director of a Libyan foundation, Saleh Abdul Salam. A bank handling the transfer of funds and SOS-Attentat, a group that works for terrorism victims' rights, also signed the private deal.
The Sept. 19, 1989, bombing of an UTA airlines jet flight over the Niger desert killed all 170 people aboard. Victims' families came from 17 countries, but France, with 54 dead, had the heaviest casualties.
"There is a bit of general euphoria linked to the end of enormous negotiations, the end of 14, nearly 15 years of grieving," Denoix de Saint Marc told Associated Press Television News ahead of the signing.
It's a significant increase from the total package of $26 million a French court awarded them four years ago, reports CBS News Correspondent Elaine Cobbe, although not as much as the Lockerbie victims received. The French deal works out to $1 million per victim, while the Pan Am Flight 103 compensation — $2.7 billion for the 270 victims of the 1988 downing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland — is ten times as much for each casualty.
Denoix de Saint Marc said that families were "satisfied" with the terms of the accord, not immediately disclosed in full. "The Libyan government has finally recovered its honor," he added.
Denoix de Saint Marc lost his father in the bombing for which six Libyans — including a brother-in-law of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi — were convicted in absentia by a French court. They remain at large.
A special foundation was being set up to distribute funds, not expected to start flowing for six months. However, a check for a quarter of the sum — $42.5 million — was being handed over Friday, Denoix de Saint Marc said.
An accord in principle, which was signed in September, cleared the path for the international community to lift 11-year-old sanctions against Libya. However, a fall deadline for a final accord had passed without progress.
While the deal is private, France has stood in the wings overseeing developments.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam's arrival in Paris on Thursday underscored that the impact of the accord would also be felt in the diplomatic arena.
The Libyan minister was to meet separately later Friday with President Jacques Chirac and his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin.
The agreement is a follow-up to the $33 million Libya paid in the case in a 1999 deal.
The pact would be the latest overture by Libya to throw off its image as a rogue state and return to the good graces of Europe and the United States. Gadhafi last month abruptly renounced efforts to build weapons of mass destruction and opened his country's arms production facilities to international inspection.