A US judge has ordered Libya and six intelligence officials to pay billions of dollars in damages to relatives of Americans killed in the 1989 suitcase bombing of a French airliner over Niger.
US District Court Judge Henry Kennedy on Tuesday awarded more than six billion dollars (4.06 billion euros) to the estates of seven US victims, 44 immediate family members and the US firm that owned the DC-10 jet, court documents show.
"Plaintiffs here have established through their undisputed testimony that they suffered economic losses as well as severe pain and suffering and mental anguish during the eighteen years since Libya intentionally and maliciously murdered the passengers on board UTA Flight 772," Kennedy wrote in a memorandum detailing the awards. Libya has until February 25 to decide whether to appeal the court order, according to the law firm representing the plaintiffs.
UTA Flight 772 was flying from Paris to Chad on September 19, 1989 when a suitcase bomb exploded in the cargo hold at an altitude of 35,000 feet. The aircraft crashed in north-eastern Niger one and a half to three minutes later, killing all 170 passengers and crew on board.
The bombing came just nine months after the similar suitcase bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. Libya has never admitted responsibility for the crash, in which nationals of 16 countries died, including 54 French, 48 Congolese, 25 Chadians, and four Britons. But in January 2004, Libya signed a deal in Paris offering 170 million dollars (133 million euros) in compensation for the bombing of a French airliner over the Sahara in 1989.
In April 2007, Kennedy ruled that Libya was directly responsible for the attack, based on information provided by the US Department of State and extensive evidence from a French criminal case.