Libya has offered US$2.7 billion to compensate families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, but US and UN sanctions against Libya must be lifted before it hands the money over, a law firm representing families said on Tuesday.
In a letter sent to Lockerbie victims' families, the law firm said Libya would automatically release the money -- US$10 million total for each of the 270 families -- in batches from an escrow account as three conditions were met.
It said that 40 percent of the money would be released when the now suspended UN sanctions against Libya are lifted, another 40 percent would be released after US commercial sanctions are removed and the remaining 20 percent would be handed over when Libya is taken off the US list of states sponsoring terrorism.
The letter said Libya would put the money into an escrow account in a non-US bank, probably a British bank, selected by the law firm. The money would automatically be released to a plaintiff's committee account in New York as the conditions were met and Libya would not be able to deny payments or pull the money back.
The offer first must be accepted by the victims' families, who sued the Libyan government in 1996. Some representatives of the families took a pragmatic view of the offer, while others said it was a ploy by Libya to get out of the sanctions, imposed after the 1988 explosion that killed 259 mostly American passengers and crew, and 11 residents of Lockerbie.
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.
Libya has denied it had any role in the bombing.
A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday that US policy, at least for now, would not be affected by Libya's offer.
"Our policy and our views haven't changed one iota because of this," the official told Reuters.
Representatives of the Libyan government in New York were not immediately available to comment.
"In our discussions it was perfectly obvious that Libya would pay a great deal of money not just to settle our lawsuit, but to get sanctions lifted," said the letter from the New York law firm of Kreindler and Kreindler, a member of the plaintiffs committee and attorney for 118 victims' families. A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters.
"This payment schedule is designed to put the maximum pressure on Libya to do whatever our government requires in order for our government to lift US sanctions," the letter said.
The United States and Britain have demanded that Libya accept responsibility for the bombing and pay "appropriat" compensation to the victims' families before the UN sanctions -- suspended in April 1999 when Libya handed over the two men for trial -- are removed completely.
More damaging to Libya than the UN sanctions, which included an air and arms embargo and a ban on some oil equipment, are separate US sanctions on all commercial and financial transactions between Tripoli and the United States.
In an annual report on terrorism released earlier this month, the United States said that Libya, one of seven countries on its designated "state sponsors of terrorism" list, came closest to US demands for cooperation after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed over 3,000 people.
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."
(China Daily May 30, 2002)
