Libya offers €11m to families of Lockerbie victims

Libya has offered to pay around €11m per family as compensation for the deaths of 270 people in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, lawyers representing the families have said.

They said the Libyan offer was a ‘‘vast multiple’’ of settlements paid in any other aviation or terrorism case.

The total compensation deal would come to around €2.8bn.

The lawyers have been negotiating with the Libyans for years, with a view toward reaching a settlement that would permit the lifting of both UN Security Council and US sanctions against Libya.

The US State Department has not been involved in the negotiations. A senior department official expressed doubt that the Bush administration would approve the arrangement.

The New York-based Kriendler & Kriendler law firm, discussing the case publicly for the first time, outlined the status of the negotiations in a five-page letter to family members. Copies were made available to the news media.

Under the agreement, the money would be placed in escrow and released piecemeal as the sanctions against Libya are revoked: 40% when UN sanctions were lifted, 40% with removal of US commercial sanctions and 20% when Libya was removed from the State Department’s list of sponsors of international terrorism.

A senior US official said the Bush administration would not feel bound to comply with the arrangement.

The official predicted that the US Congress would reject it as well. He said the US could not commit to lifting sanctions unless Libya fully complied with Security Council demands.

Last year, a Scottish court convicted a Libyan intelligence agent, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, of murder for smuggling an explosive aboard Pan Am 103 on December 21, 1988. A co-defendant was acquitted.

All 259 people on the plane were killed. Eleven more in Lockerbie died after being hit by falling debris.

Besides compensation for families, the UN Security Council has also demanded that Libya renounce terrorism, acknowledge responsibility for the crime and disclose all it knows about it.

Discussing Libyan compliance with UN demands, the Kriendler & Kriendler statement noted that Libya met the requirement years ago that al-Megrahi be turned over for trial. The firm also said that Libya has substantially met the requirement that Libya renounce terrorism.

As for Libyan acceptance of responsibility for the bombing, it said negotiations on that issue involving the US, Britain and Libya may soon be concluded successfully.