Libya agrees to compensate crash victims' families
PARIS, Jan 9: Libya took a new step out of diplomatic isolation on Friday when it signed a deal in Paris offering 170 million dollars in compensation for the bombing of a French airliner over the Sahara in 1989.
After several months of negotiations the Qadhafi Foundation, which has been acting for the Libyan government, agreed to pay one million dollars to families of each of the victims killed when the DC-10 belonging to the UTA airline crashed in Niger.
Speaking after talks with his Libyan counterpart Abdelrahman Shalgam, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin described it as an "important agreement which opens up new perspectives", and he said he supported the "progressive normalization" of ties between Libya and the European Union.
In recent months Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi has made a series of moves to re-establish links with the United States and Europe, concluding a compensation deal for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing over Scotland and last month vowing to abandon all programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction.
A United Nations embargo on Tripoli was lifted in September after the Lockerbie deal, but the United States maintains unilateral sanctions and President George Bush this week said they would not be lifted until Libya takes "concrete steps" to prove its good faith.
Mr Shalgam, who went on to see French President Jacques Chirac, said "bilateral relations were good. They will become excellent". He also said the two countries should coordinate in promoting economic development in Africa and resolving regional conflicts.
Under the UTA deal, the 170 million dollars will be paid in four instalments, with a first cheque for the euro equivalent of 42.5 million dollars handed over at Friday's signing.
The sum was still short of the 10 million dollars paid to the 270 families of Lockerbie victims, but the spokesman for the UTA relatives Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc said the disparity was not enormous because "after lawyers' fees and taxes the Lockerbie families will in fact get between 1.5 and two million dollars".
France's insistence that the 170 UTA families get compensation comparable to the Lockerbie deal held up the UN resolution lifting sanctions on Libya, which was only voted after Paris and Tripoli signed a provisional agreement in September. Wrangling over details continued until this week.
Libya has never admitted responsibility for the UTA crash, in which nationals of 16 countries died, including 54 French, 48 Congolese, 25 Chadians, eight Americans and four Britons. However as with Lockerbie, Tripoli was prepared to cut a financial deal to win back international acceptance.
Brigitte Moret, whose sister died in the crash, said "the agreement is the recognition of Libya's guilt and responsibility which we have been waiting for for 14 years. It is like the confession of a criminal".
However the lawyer for ten Congolese families said the money was still too little and that they would refuse to accept it. In 1999 six Libyan officials, including Mr Qadhafi's brother-in-law, were sentenced to jail terms in absentia in Paris for their role in the bombing, and Paris has resisted pressure from Tripoli to have the convictions quashed or international arrest warrants for the men lifted.-AFP
