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Father: Families still want answers
LONDON, England -- Some relatives of the 270 victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, say a compensation agreement with Libya may divert attention from their quest for an independent inquiry. Others fear that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will be allowed to evade responsibility. Briton John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga was on the flight, said Thursday that key issues over the bombing remained unanswered. He told CNN: "We're still fighting for an independent inquiry into this murder of 270 innocent people. "Here in the UK, the largest mass murder since World War II and we have not been granted a forum to even ask the major questions, let alone get them answered ... why our Western governments, and the agencies they employ to protect us, failed us so miserably when they had so much intelligence." He said there were at least 10 warning signs that were ignored, then after the crash the British and U.S. governments dodged the "big questions." Mosey added: "I guess we will never get really to the whole bottom of it. I think it's shrouded in mystery and the longer it goes on the more difficult it will be to exhume the truth." Mosey, who has been working with some of the British families, told CNN he was pleased the deal might bring Libya back into the "world community," adding: "It would be far better to have Libya as a friendly nation, rather than as an antagonistic nation." He said that was more important to him than the money, although he acknowledged for other families the compensation was much needed. "We have a son who's 30, just got married, who gives us a great joy, but we do miss our daughter tremendously. "The thing will never go away, it's not a sickness that we're going to recover from. It's more like an amputation that we're going to have to learn how to live with."
Libyan, U.S. and British lawyers agreed on Wednesday on a $2.7 billion compensation fund. Lawyers have said Libya will pay up to $10 million for each of the 270 victims. Mosey said: "Compensation is a funny word and it doesn't come near to explaining what it is. "Our daughter might have had children by now, we could be grandparents. She might have had a sparkling musical career which she was on the verge of as a serious singer. "Nothing can compensate for the loss of those great horizons that would have been a part of our life." Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was aboard the flight, told The Associated Press: "Today's agreement still leaves the question of the truth behind Lockerbie. "We still want an independent inquiry into what happened." In 2001, a Scottish court convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi of the bombing and sentenced him to life imprisonment. A second Libyan was acquitted. Under the U.N. resolution, sanctions cannot be lifted permanently until Libya acknowledges responsibility for the bombing, pays fair compensation, renounces terrorism and discloses all it knows about the explosion. U.S. lawyer Mark Zaid told the BBC that a statement of responsibility from Libya over the atrocity "won't go far enough for many of the families." He said Libya only cared about extricating itself from sanctions. Zaid added that the statement, which is yet to be published, would be in "diplomatic legalese" that could be interpreted "one way or the other." "It wouldn't surprise me at all if there are families who are not satisfied with the language," he added. George Williams, a spokesman of the U.S. group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, told the BBC it would be unacceptable for Gadhafi to seek to evade responsibility. "If he's going to just blame it on an individual citizen of Libya and say that the government had nothing to do with it, that is not acceptable at all, and I would just as soon have the U.N. sanctions re-imposed and continue on until Gadhafi curls up in a corner and dies," said Williams, who lost his 24-year-old son Geordie. Dan and Susan Cohen, from New Jersey, who lost their 20 year-old daughter in the bombing, think these moves are leading to a rehabilitation of the Libyan government. "We have instructed our lawyers that we will not touch any money that has to do with the lifting of U.S. sanctions against Libya. We think Libya is guilty and should be punished severely. We are going to forego $6 million because we want to prove that we are serious about this," Dan Cohen told CNN. "And because we have to live with ourselves," Susan Cohen added. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Our daughter might have had children by now, we could be grandparents
