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KF5JRV > TODAY 21.12.18 14:25l 51 Lines 2714 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 27449_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 21
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<VE2PKT<N3HYM<NS2B<KF5JRV
Sent: 181221/1215Z 27449@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.17
On this day in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes
in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16
crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A
bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area
when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which
became the subject of Britain’s largest criminal investigation, was
believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty
nine of the victims were American.
Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while
it was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Authorities suspected the
attack was in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against
Libya, in which leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s young daughter was killed
along with dozens of other people, or a 1988 incident, in which the U.S.
mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian
Gulf, killing 290 people.
Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, the U.S. embassy in
Helsinki, Finland, received a call warning that a bomb would be placed
on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. There is controversy over how
seriously the U.S. took the threat and whether travelers should have
been alerted, but officials later said that the connection between the
call and the bomb was coincidental.
In 1991, following a joint investigation by the British authorities and
the F.B.I., Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and
Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were indicted for murder; however, Libya refused to
hand over the suspects to the U.S. Finally, in 1999, in an effort to
ease United Nations sanctions against his country, Qaddafi agreed to
turn over the two men 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 and Fhimah was acquitted. Over the U.S.
government’s objections, Al-Megrahi was freed and returned to Libya in
August 2009 after doctors determined that he had only months to live.
In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn’t
express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and
Libya agreed to pay each victim’s family approximately $8 million in
restitution. In 2004, Libya’s prime minister said that the deal was the
“price for peace,ö implying that his country only took responsibility to
get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims’
families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the
bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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