Libya to compensate West Berlin bombing victims

LIBYA has agreed to compensate more than 160 victims of the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin nightclub, making another major step toward ending its international isolation.

The Libyan ambassador to Germany, Said Abdulaati, said yesterday the compensation would total $35 million, a figure later confirmed by the German government.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s spokesman Bela Anda said the deal would enable Germany and Europe to improve economic and political relations with the oil-rich North African nation and that Schroeder would travel to Tripoli shortly.

Two US soldiers and a Turkish woman were killed and more than 200 people injured in the explosion at “La Belle,” a disco popular among US soldiers. The compensation covers non-US victims only.

A German court ruled in 2001 that the Libyan secret service was behind the bombing and convicted four people, including a former Libyan diplomat.

“In accordance with its European partners Germany advocates a new quality in the relations between the European Union and Libya,” Schroeder’s spokesman Anda said following the deal.

Germany and Libya will also hold a bilateral business forum in Tripoli in November.

The deal was negotiated by German lawyers and members of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s charitable foundation.

Payouts to US victims and their families are the subject of separate legal action in the United States.

Mr Abdulaati said the relatives of the Turkish woman killed in the explosion would receive $1 million.

A spokesman for lawyer Ulrich von Jeinsen said 11 people who were severely injured would receive $350,000 and the other victims $190,000. Both amounts are less than half what the lawyers were initially demanding.

The formal agreement on the compensation will be signed on September 3, the spokesman said. The ambassador said this take place in Tripoli.

Libya has taken significant steps to win over western countries and end three decades of international isolation. Gaddafi announced in December he was renouncing weapons of mass destruction, a promise which helped earn him a visit to Brussels for talks with EU officials.

Libya has also agreed to pay $2.7 billion to victim’s families from the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, for which a Libyan secret agent was convicted.