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| Europe |
| Libya agrees to Berlin bomb payout |
| 2004-08-11 |
| Tuesday, August 10, 2004 Posted: 10:51 AM EDT (1451 GMT) BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million in compensation for victims of a 1986 bombing in Berlin that killed three people and injured 229 others, the Libyan ambassador to Germany said. What's the interest on $35,000,000 over almost 20 years? The deal came in negotiations in Berlin between Libyan officials and lawyers for German victims of the bombing at the La Belle disco, Ambassador Said Abdulaati told The Associated Press. "This is a good step," he said. He said the deal applies to Germans who were wounded in the April 5, 1986 attack and the family of a Turkish woman who was killed, but not to two U.S. servicemen who also died in the explosion. A German lawyer involved in the talks also said the two sides had settled. "I can confirm that there has been a settlement for $35 million in the La Belle case," Sven Leistikow told The Associated Press by telephone. The latest talks were held at a secret location in Berlin La Belle was a hangout for U.S. soldiers when they were stationed in West Berlin during the city's Cold War division. A Berlin court ruled in 2001 that the bombing was organized by the Libyan secret service and aided by the Libyan Embassy in then-communist East Berlin. It convicted four people of carrying out the bombing, and a federal court upheld their sentences last month. Libya's recent settling of the Pan Am and UTA airliner bombing cases -- part of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's effort to end his country's pariah status -- had raised expectations of compensation for the La Belle bombing. Ghadafi's potential complicity in some of the African genocides make his re-entry into the fold a really bad idea. Once again, America will be perceived as propping up another regional tinpot dictator. Concessions regarding the installation of a democracy and other binding agreements would have been a much wiser move. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #3 I wish Reagan's raid had killed the man who will never be spelled right. Blutgeld |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-08-11 16:50 |
| #2 They weren't part of the class action suit brought by the German/Turkish victims |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-08-11 09:28 |
| #1 Why don't the Libyans have to pay the families of the two American servicemen that were killed? |
| Posted by: Kentucky Beef 2004-08-11 08:51 |