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N0KFQ > TODAY 21.12.13 19:11l 60 Lines 2784 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 21
Path: IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<VE3UIL<GB7MAX<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 131221/1655Z 9008@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.57
Dec 21, 1988:
Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland
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," 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, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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