Court Awards US Victims More Than $6 Billion for 1989 Libyan Terrorist Bombing of French Airliner That Killed 170 People Over African Desert
16 Jan 2008 05:16 Africa/Lagos Court Awards US Victims More Than $6 Billion for 1989 Libyan Terrorist Bombing of French Airliner That Killed 170 People Over African Desert WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A federal judge has ordered the Government of Libya and six of its officials to pay a total of approximately $6 billion in damages arising from the mid-air suitcase bombing of a French-operated UTA Flight 772, DC-10 wide-body jet. The 1989 attack killed 170 people from Europe, Africa and the United States and was one of the deadliest terrorist events in commercial aviation history before September 11, 2001. It came only nine months after a similar suitcase bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. The case stems from the September 19, 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772, which was flying from N'djamena, Chad to Paris, France when a suitcase bomb exploded in the cargo hold at an altitude of 35,000 feet. The aircraft crashed into...