Wednesday 7 February 2018

US won’t disclose fate of $500 million paid by Libya for Lockerbie bombing victims

[This is the headline over a report published yesterday on the Breitbart
News website. It reads in part:]

The US government refuses to say whether it will keep or return the estimated $500 million that remains from the $1.5 billion Libya-sponsored fund intended to compensate American victims of terrorism following the 1988 attack on Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US State Department official acknowledged that the US government paid some of this money to victims of other terrorist attacks, not just Lockerbie. Libya’s government was linked to the assault on the Pan-Am aircraft.

In a statement to Breitbart News, the State official said:
Shortly after the [$1.5 billion] settlement was received [from Libya], the State Department paid amounts to the PanAm 103 victims, LaBelle Disco bombing victims, and estates of victims who had died in other terrorist attacks that were the subject of litigation pending against Libya in US courts These payments amounted to over $1 billion.
According to State, about $500 million remained in the fund. Public data online shows that the US government has only awarded an estimated $37.7 million, indicating that much larger portion of the $1.5 billion is leftover.

Asked whether the US government will keep the leftover funds or return the money to Libya, US President Donald Trump’s administration would not say.

“In the event there are any residual balances in the Fund Account at the time of the Fund’s expiration, those balances will be transferred pursuant to arrangements agreed between the parties,” noted the 2008 US-Libya settlement of $1.5 billion awarded by the African country.US government officials declined to tell Breitbart News what the “agreed arrangements” are.

The settlement agreement dictates that the $1.5 billion is intended to compensate US victims of “an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage taking or detention or other terrorist act, or the provision of material support or resources for such an act; or by military measures” at the hands of Libya.

Under former US President Barack Obama, the American government issued compensation referrals for individuals who were not affected by Lockerbie “because there were some remaining settlement funds,” acknowledged the State official, noting that the same thing happened under former President George W Bush.

The US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Foreign Claims Settlement Commission (FCSC) is charged with deciding who gets the Libya funds.

FCSC officials recently denied a request by about 50 former Pan Am pilots to recover $46.5 million ($75.3 million with interest) from the Libya-subsidized funds. Whether $500 million or more remains in the Libya-sponsored fund, there is definitely enough money to cover the Pan-Am pilots’ claim.

The pilots, many of them senior citizens now who served in the US military, have argued that the Lockerbie attack prompted the demise of Pan Am, which resulted in them losing their jobs and pensions.

However, FCSC officials contended that the Lockerbie incident did not lead to PanAm’s demise and therefore had nothing to do with the pilots losing their jobs.

1 comment:

  1. "The US government refuses to say whether it will keep or return the estimated $500 million that remains from the $1.5 billion Libya-sponsored fund intended to compensate American victims of terrorism following the 1988 attack on Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland."

    I suppose the options are:
    A: We will keep the money, or spend them wisely our ourselves, and only 'return' them to Libya in exchange for something valuable which we for some reason see it as an advantage to pay for.
    or
    B: We will return the money to the Libyan people the best way possible, e.g. funding of schools, hospitals and other needs which somehow seems to have skyrocketed since 2011.

    But as stated, they won't tell us. So I will flip a coin.

    It appeared to me that it was strange if your pension is exclusively tied to the company you work for. So I googled for "pension if company goes bankrupt". It does seem that others long before Lockerbie have been thinking about just this situation, and there is some apparatus in place since 1974 to at least mitigate the situation.

    Anyway, this is of course just superficial thinking, but I anyway sit with a feeling that it would be better for us all if those 50 pilotes demanded that the funds instead should be spend to victims of US 'extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage taking or detention or other terrorist act, or the provision of material support or resources for such an act; or by military measures'.

    But maybe they would not know that there _are_ any such victims? The press certainly does not seem to do its job.

    This 2017-article explains why our unfortunate PANAM pilots might be unaware of why some of us already have shed all tears and spent all indignation elsewhere, and why finding people motivated for the rather senseless art of blowing up airplanes isn't difficult enough.

    https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2017/07/03/the-forgotten-us-shootdown-of-iranian-airliner-flight-655%C2%AD/

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