£2.4bn offer for Lockerbie families
Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffy is offering to pay up to £2.4 billion compensation to families of the Lockerbie bombing victims.
Libyan officials say a "formal offer" will be made by Gadaffy, which would clear the way for ending US and British sanctions on his regime for its part in the bombing.
In a letter to families of the 270 killed in the terrorist attack, a lawyer in talks with Libyan officials in Paris reveals the planned offer, which would meet a key United Nations demand for compensation.
The move follows talks between Libyan diplomats and British and American authorities seeking a deal to resolve the long-running dispute and end Libya's international isolation, allowing it to resume oil exports banned by the sanctions.
The way was cleared for a deal by the failure last month of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's appeal against his conviction for mass murder, leading to the letter, reported today in American magazine Time.
Talks between Libya and Britain and the US had begun at the end of the Lockerbie trial in January 2001 but had been inconclusive while Al Megrahi, who was sentenced to life in a Scottish prison, appealed.
Gadaffy has already agreed to respect the decision of the Scottish High Court sitting in Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands.
But the deal may founder after a recent CIA report accused Gadaffy of seeking weapons of mass destruction, which would put Washington under pressure to keep sanctions in place.
New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 more on the ground. Families of the British victims say they are more concerned about finding out the truth behind the bombing than being compensated.
Spokesman for the UK Families Flight 103 Group Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora, 23, died in the tragedy, said the British relatives still wanted to see a full public inquiry into the terrorist attack.
"Our campaign has always been for truth about what happened and justice for our families," he added.
