December 10, 1998. Copyright, 1998, Graphic News. All rights 
reserved

LOCKERBIE: THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE
By Margot Nesdale

LONDON, December 10, Graphic News: The 10th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing is looming with officials yet to reach a deal for the handover of the Libyan suspects. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has agreed to a trial in a third country after a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan but they failed to agree when the two accused would surrender. Their proposed trial is scheduled to take place at a Dutch airbase near the Hague but Gaddafi has sought assurances that, if convicted, the two would not be sent to the United States or Britain.

Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 
passengers and 11 people on the ground.In May 1990 Pan Am reached an out-of-court settlement with the families of Lockerbie residents killed or injured or whose propert was damaged. The airline filed for bankruptcy protection eight months later.

Britain and the U.S. accused Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah of the bombing in November 1991 but Libya denied involvement.In March 1992 the UN Security Council told Libya to hand over the suspects or face a worldwide ban on air travel, arms sales and restriction on diplomatic presence. The sanctions were imposed a month later and tightened in December 1993, to include a freeze on some Libyan assets abroad and a ban on its imports of certain types of equipment used in the oil industry.

Pan Am sought $300 million in damages from Libya in Scotlands highest civil court in Edinburgh the same month.In January 1994 Gaddafi said a trial in The Hague for the two suspects could resolve the dispute. Two months later the FBI offered a record $4 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the two Libyans. The widow of one of the victims was awarded more than $19 million by a federal jury in New York in April 1995 in the largest wrongful death award in airline history  225 other liability 
cases remain outstanding.

Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a ruling that Libya had sovereign immunity shielding it from a lawsuit filed on 
behalf of a Lockerbie victim. Libya later said that sanctions had cost the country $23.5 billion.

In September 1997 Libya urged the UN General Assembly to intervene to enable the suspects to be tried in a country other than 
Britain or the United States. Britain and the U.S. agreed to the third country proposal in August with the trial to be heard under Scottish law. Libya has said it will deal positively with the proposals but has yet to give full agreement. 
/ENDS.

Sources: Reuters