Lockerbie Scotland

The government has accepted responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie, Scotland, airliner bombing and set up a fund that could total about $2.7 billion to compensate victims' families, Foreign Minister Mohammed Abderrahmane Chalgam said. The U.S. said the statement did not meet the requirements of U.N. Security Council resolutions, which require Libya to take responsibility, pay compensation and renounce terrorism. The bombing killed 270 people.

Scotland's justice minister Monday defended his much-criticized decision to free the only man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing. The Scottish administration has faced unrelenting criticism from both the U.S. government and some of the families of American victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing since it announced last week that it was freeing Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi on compassionate grounds. The terminally ill Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, returned to his native Libya on Thursday, where he was greeted by crowds waving Libyan and Scottish flags.

Seventy-five to 100 relatives of people killed when a bomb exploded aboard an airliner attended a meeting in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., to form the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 committee. "We've come to assist each other in our grief," said Paul Hudson, an attorney and former counsel to the New York State Crime Victims Compensation Board who started the network. Hudson's daughter, Melina, was aboard when a terrorist's bomb on the plane blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, Dec.

Libya contradicted its prime minister Wednesday and affirmed that it was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The assertion by Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem that Libya had not acknowledged the attack that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans, put on hold U.S. plans to lift nearly three decades of restrictions on American travel to the country. Secretary of State Colin L.

Four Scottish constables arrived in Boston to calm families who say they cannot put to rest loved ones killed by a terrorist bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 until the victims' personal belongings are returned to them. The senior police officers wanted to ease the pain and confusion felt by many families of the 259 victims whose possessions have been withheld during the investigation of the Dec. 21 plane explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland.

A dispute pitting Libya against the United States and Britain over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, will be heard by the World Court in The Hague next week. The case centers on an international push for the surrender and prosecution of two Libyan nationals implicated in the bombing, which killed 270 people. The court announced that hearings will begin Monday and continue for eight days.

A campaign to raise a $2.5 million reward for the capture of the terrorists responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 will be launched today in Washington, a London newspaper reported. The Sunday Telegraph said that Bruce Smith, whose British wife, Ingrid, was one of 270 people who were killed when the Boeing 747 exploded Dec. 21 over Lockerbie, Scotland, will announce the campaign.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi discussed his Lockerbie impasse with the West on Saturday in talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that are expected to last at least one more day, presidential sources said. Kadafi will hold a news conference at the end of his talks with Mubarak on Monday, Egyptian Information Minister Safwat Sharif said. The Libyan leader is due to leave Egypt on Friday. There was no further word about the progress of the talks. The U.N.

Relatives of the victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, have begun taking advantage of a change in federal law that allows them to sue Libya for its alleged role in the 1988 terrorist attack that killed 270 people. In Washington, lawyers for M. Victoria Cummock of Coral Gables, Fla., whose husband died in the attack, filed a $1-billion class action lawsuit against Libya, the two alleged bombers, Libyan Arab Airlines and the Libyan External Security Organization.

The United States and Britain have reached an understanding with Libya under which Moammar Kadafi's government would renounce terrorism, accept responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and compensate families of the 270 victims, U.N. diplomats and an attorney said Tuesday. The diplomats, on condition of anonymity, said an agreement could be signed as early as today, paving the way for a U.N. Security Council resolution to lift sanctions against Libya.

Britain submitted a draft resolution Monday to lift U.N. sanctions on Libya, discreetly pressuring France to not let its own dispute with Tripoli over compensation for airline bombing victims block a vote this week. "Our wish is to see an early vote," British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said as he left a meeting of the Security Council. "This has been a long, painful, protracted negotiation, especially for the families." The U.N.

The Libyan government signed an agreement Wednesday setting up a $2.7-billion fund for families of the 270 victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland -- a key step toward lifting U.N. sanctions against Tripoli, the families' lawyers said. The agreement setting up an escrow account at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, was reached after an 11-hour session in London, said an e-mail signed by attorneys James P. Kreindler and Steven R. Pounian.

The United States and Britain have reached an understanding with Libya under which Moammar Kadafi's government would renounce terrorism, accept responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and compensate families of the 270 victims, U.N. diplomats and an attorney said Tuesday. The diplomats, on condition of anonymity, said an agreement could be signed as early as today, paving the way for a U.N. Security Council resolution to lift sanctions against Libya.

The government has accepted responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie, Scotland, airliner bombing and set up a fund that could total about $2.7 billion to compensate victims' families, Foreign Minister Mohammed Abderrahmane Chalgam said. The U.S. said the statement did not meet the requirements of U.N. Security Council resolutions, which require Libya to take responsibility, pay compensation and renounce terrorism. The bombing killed 270 people.

Libya agreed for the first time Tuesday to take a measure of responsibility for the 1988 terrorist bombing that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, said a senior State Department official who reported that the offer is being studied carefully. At a meeting in London with U.S. and British diplomats who have long been negotiating a statement of responsibility, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi's emissaries proposed words to accompany a previous offer to pay as much as $2.

The Bush administration said Wednesday that the United States would not lift sanctions against Libya based solely on its government's offer of $2.7 billion as compensation for the 270 people killed in the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called reports of the proposal a move forward and said the U.S. would examine the offer once it is formally made and the terms are relayed to Washington.

Libya contradicted its prime minister Wednesday and affirmed that it was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The assertion by Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem that Libya had not acknowledged the attack that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans, put on hold U.S. plans to lift nearly three decades of restrictions on American travel to the country. Secretary of State Colin L.

The Libyan government signed an agreement Wednesday setting up a $2.7-billion fund for families of the 270 victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland -- a key step toward lifting U.N. sanctions against Tripoli, the families' lawyers said. The agreement setting up an escrow account at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, was reached after an 11-hour session in London, said an e-mail signed by attorneys James P. Kreindler and Steven R. Pounian.

In a bold attempt to get off the U.S. terrorism list, Libya is offering $10 million in compensation for each victim of the 1988 midair bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people, U.S. officials and lawyers for the families say. The Libyan offer to pay a total of $2.7 billion in compensation is also contingent on the lifting of sanctions that have been imposed against the North African nation by the United States and the United Nations, U.S. officials said.

The Libyan cleared in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 flew home Thursday to a warm embrace from his leader, Col. Moammar Kadafi, while Scotland's top prosecutor ruled out the possibility of bringing further criminal charges in the case any time soon. Chief prosecutor Colin Boyd said that the Scottish court's decision Wednesday acquitting Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and convicting Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi of murder in the 1988 bombing made it clear that Megrahi did not act alone.