Lawyers say Lockerbie compensation close
Negotiators are close to an agreement on the amount of compensation Libya will offer families of the 270 people killed in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, a lawyer involved in the talks said today.
‘‘There’s a good chance that there will be a substantial offer soon,’’ said New York lawyer James Kreindler, who is negotiating on behalf of the families with the Libyan government’s lawyers. He did not indicate an amount.
Libyan officials had no immediate comment on the negotiations, whose success would mean the closing of one of the last chapters in the 14-year-old case.
A former Libyan intelligence agent was convicted in the bombing last year and his conviction was upheld on appeal in March.
Tripoli, analysts say, considers compensation the last hurdle it must clear to be welcomed back into the international community and start to repair ties with Washington, which long has viewed Libya as a terrorist state.
The United States has compelling reasons for reconciling with Libya, but some American officials and victims’ relatives question whether the north African state has done all it can to close the Pan Am case.
‘‘There is no settlement yet,’’ Kreindler said. ‘‘I think there is a good chance that there will be in the very near future.’’
Kreindler said talks began several years ago and the last round ended in Paris last month. A new round had not yet been scheduled, but Kreindler expected it within a few months.
‘‘The Libyans are willing to pay. But it’s a matter of how much,’’ said Saad Djabbar, an expert on North Africa at Cambridge University.
‘‘I think it will be very fair compensation because the Libyans want to bury this.’’
‘‘They accept the principal that if an employee of the state committed a wrongdoing, then the state is liable to pay compensation. But it is not an admission of responsibility on the part of the government,’’ Djabbar said.
According to UN resolutions, though, Libya must acknowledge responsibility.
The resolutions also call on Libya to pay fair compensation, renounce terrorism and disclose all it knows of the December 21 1988 explosion over Scotland of the Frankfurt-London-New York flight.
‘‘There has to be an acknowledgment of responsibility for the acts of their agents,’’ said David Mack, vice president of the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
‘‘If they pay compensation, it sort of implies that, but I think the United States government will want a little more.’’
Mack, who has served as a US diplomat in Libya and as a deputy assistant secretary of state specialising in the Middle East, said diplomats should be able to work out language on responsibility that both the Americans and the Libyans can accept.
Once it comes to terms, Mack said the US will be able to point to Libya as an example of how states once considered rogue can be brought back into the international fold - and enlisted in the anti-terror campaign.
‘‘It makes a very important point in the campaign against terrorism,’’ Mack said, adding administration officials had assured him Libya was already cooperating in the campaign launched after September 11 and that it had been years since Libya had been linked to terrorism.
Economics also plays a role. American business, particularly energy companies, can't do business with oil-rich Libya - as European companies move in.
Bert Ammerman, a New Jersey headmaster whose brother Thomas died in the Pan Am bombing, said the compensation negotiations had not yet reached the point where families were being briefed, but that he had heard estimates of Libya’s total offer ranging as high as €4.45bn.
‘‘Some families wouldn’t accept a penny, because as far as they’re concerned, it would be blood money,’’ Ammerman said.
Jim Swire, a spokesman for British Pan Am 103 families and father of one of the victims, said the compensation discussion held little interest for him.
‘‘Our campaign has always been for the truth about what happened and justice for our families,’’ he said.
In March, a Scottish appeals court upheld the murder conviction of former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi for the Pan Am bombing, which killed 259 people on the transatlantic flight and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. Most of those killed were Americans.
Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 20 years. A second Libyan, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, had been acquitted in the original trial in January 2001.
UN sanctions against Libya were suspended, but not lifted, in 1999 when Gaddafi agreed to turn over al-Megrahi and Fhimah for trial.
Washington maintained its unilateral sanctions, but Britain, Canada, Germany and Italy reopened embassies in Libya, and Italy and Germany are now Libya’s top trading partners.
