BERLIN, 11 August 2004 — Germany and Libya have reached an agreement on compensating dozens of people wounded in the deadly 1986 bombing of a Berlin nightclub, Libya’s ambassador here, Said Abdulaati, told AFP yesterday.

“The accord will be signed this evening,” Abdulaati said. He said Libya had agreed to pay a total of $35 million (28.4 million euros) to non-US nationals who were hurt.

The bombing at the “La Belle” discotheque, which was frequented by US servicemen, in then West Berlin killed two GIs and a Turkish woman and wounded more than 250 people.

Former US President Ronald Reagan immediately blamed Libya and retaliated by ordering air strikes on its capital, Tripoli.

The German government confirmed the news and welcomed a deal that is seen as vital to restoring Libya’s international legitimacy.

“Germany favors in agreement with its European partners a new quality in relations between the European Union and Libya,” it said in a statement.

Tripoli has reached compensation agreements with the families of victims of airliners blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and Niger in 1989.

Those accords, along with Moammar Qaddafi’s announcement in December that he would renounce weapons of mass destruction, have helped Libya overcome its isolation as a pariah state. But La Belle has remained an obstacle.

A lawyer for the civil plaintiffs, Stephane Maigne, meanwhile said that talks between the German and Libyan negotiators had not ended and would not comment on the Libyan ambassador’s announcement.

“What I know is that the negotiations are continuing,” he said. The talks, which began on Monday, are the latest in a series of discussions that have been held between the sides for almost a year.

Until recently, German lawyers were believed to be seeking around 500,000 euros ($614,000) for each severely wounded person and 332,000 for those who were not so badly hurt.

Libya was thought to be offering 270,000 and 104,000 euros respectively. An estimated 164 people are likely to receive compensation.

In 2001, a German court sentenced four people to up to 14 years in prison and ruled that Libya was partially responsible for the attack.

Tripoli has never accepted blame but in August last year the Qaddafi Foundation, chaired by Libyan leader Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam, offered to compensate the victims.