Posted on 05/28/2002 4:35:51 PM PDT by blam
Libya Offers $2.7 Billion Lockerbie Settlement
Tue May 28, 7:03 PM ET
By Patrick Rizzo
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Libya has offered a conditional $2.7 billion to compensate families of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, a law firm representing families said on Tuesday.
But Libya has imposed a number of conditions that have to be met before it will automatically release the money from an escrow account to a Plaintiff's Committee account in New York, according to a statement e-mailed to the media by the law firm for 118 of the families.
It said that 40 percent of the money would be released when the now suspended U.N. sanctions against Libya are lifted, another 40 percent would be released after U.S. commercial sanctions are removed and the remaining 20 percent would be handed over when Libya is taken off the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism.
The explosion killed 259 mostly American passengers and crew, and 11 residents of Lockerbie. In 2001, one Libyan defendant was convicted and a second was acquitted of the mid-air bombing.
The victims' families filed a lawsuit against the Libyan government in 1996.
If Libya's offer is accepted by the families, each of the them would receive $10 million,
"We are pleased to inform you that after 10 months of difficult and intricate negotiations in New York, London and Paris, we have finally obtained a settlement offer from Libya that we recommend to you," said a letter from the law firm of Kreindler and Kreindler, sent to victims' families. A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters.
Susan Cohen of Cape May Court House, New Jersey who lost her 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, in the Lockerbie bombing (news - web sites), said she was outraged by the offer.
"I feel this is a sickening business deal which has nothing to do with any real change on the part of Libya," she told Reuters by telephone.
"It's a buy-off of the families that serves only the purpose of the Libyans to get out of sanctions."
Bert Ammerman of River Vale, New Jersey, whose brother, Tom Ammerman, 36, was killed on Pan Am flight 103, called it a "substantial settlement."
"It means that if your fingerprints are on acts of terrorism you will be held accountable legally, financially and politically," said Ammerman, who will not directly benefit from any settlement, though his sister-in-law will.
"I am pragmatic, but some families will never be able to accept any agreement," said Ammerman.
Representatives of the Libyan government in New York were not immediately available to comment. Libya has denied that its government had any role in the bombing.
State Department spokesman Frederick Jones said, "We feel that comment on any settlement matter is best left to the lawyers representing those particular families and the Libyan government."
In January 2001 a three-judge Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands found Abdel Basset al-Megrahi guilty of the bombing, sentenced him to life in prison and said it accepted evidence he was a member of Libya's Jamahariya Security Organization. The court acquitted and set free his co-defendant, Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima.
Al-Megrahi appealed the verdict, but Scottish appeal judges in the Netherlands in March upheld his conviction.
"These are uncharted waters," said Jim Kreindler in the statement. "It is the first time that any of the states designated as sponsors of terrorism have offered compensation to families of terror victims."
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