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N0KFQ > TODAY 21.12.10 19:14l 60 Lines 2725 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 21
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Sent: 101221/1657Z @:N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA #:24387 [Branson] FBB7.00i $:24387_N
From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@WW
Dec 21, 1988:
Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland
Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over
Lockerbie, Scotland, an hour after departure. A bomb that had
been hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated inside the
cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. All
259 passengers, including 35 Syracuse University students
returning home for the holidays, were killed in the explosion. In
addition, 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed in the shower of
airplane parts that unexpectedly fell from the sky.
Authorities accused Islamic terrorists of having placed the bomb
on the plane at the low-security airport in Malta, and it was
transferred to Flight 103 in Frankfurt, Germany. They apparently
believed that the attack was in retaliation for either the 1986
bombing attack on Libya , or a 1988 incident, in which the United
States killed 290 passengers when it mistakenly shot down an Iran
Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf.
Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, a call was made
to the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, warning that a bomb
would be placed on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. Though some
claimed that travelers should have been alerted to this threat,
U.S. officials later said that the connection between the call
and the bomb was purely coincidental.
In the early 1990s, investigators identified Libyans Abdel Basset
Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah as suspects, but Libya
refused to turn them over to be tried in the United States. But
in 1999--in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against
Libya--President Moammar Gadhafi agreed to turn the suspects over
to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and
prosecutors. In early 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison, although he continues to profess his
innocence and work to overturn his conviction. Fhimah was
acquitted.
In accordance with United Nations and American demands, Libya
accepted responsibility for the bombing, though it did not
express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted most sanctions against
Libya; the country then paid each victim's family approximately
$8 million in compensation. In 2004, Libya's prime minister said
that the deal was the "price for peace," implying that his
country only accepted responsibility to get the sanctions lifted,
angering the survivors' families. He also admitted that Libya had
not really accepted guilt for the bombing.
Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt in 1991, received a $30
million settlement from the Libyan government in 2006.
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