WASHINGTON, 16 August 2003 — France has threatened to veto lifting of UN sanctions on Libya unless Tripoli increases compensation for victims of a 1989 French airliner bombing, possibly jeopardizing the $2.7 billion Lockerbie settlement, US officials said.
The French position outraged some US officials who feared it would delay or undermine a tortuously negotiated deal under which Libya plans to pay up to $10 million to families of the 270 people killed in the midair bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The US officials accused France of hypocrisy, saying it long ago accepted lower compensation for the 170 victims of the bombing of UTA Flight 772 over Niger in 1989 and in the past had called for the UN sanctions to be permanently lifted. US Secretary of State Colin Powell called French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin on Wednesday to urge Paris not to undermine the Lockerbie settlement, which had appeared on the brink of completion. Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Raman Shalgham also slammed the French stance. “France is using pressure and blackmail and we do not accept this,” said Shalgham, adding that his government had made its position clear to de Villepin.
Lawyers for Lockerbie families signed an accord with Libya on Wednesday to set up an escrow bank account to hold the $2.7 billion in compensation Tripoli has agreed to pay. The escrow agreement is the first step in the arrangement under which Libya was expected to formally take responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, possibly this week and, as a result, for UN sanctions against Tripoli to be lifted, possibly as early as next week.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s blackmail,” Glenn Johnson, whose daughter Beth Ann died at the age of 21 in the bombing, said after the families were briefed by Powell and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns. Rosemary Wolfe, whose 20-year-old step-daughter Miriam died in the explosion, quoted Burns as calling the French position “unconscionable.”
