Lawyers for Libya sign compensation offer

Lawyers representing Libya have signed the latest version of an offer to compensate relatives of the 270 people killed in the Pan Am plane which blew up over Lockerbie in 1988, according to a letter made available on Tuesday.

The letter, circulated to the families on Monday by the New York law firm Kreindler and Kreindler, makes minor changes to an offer circulated in August but this time it bears the signatures of five lawyers representing the Libyan side.

The Pan Am plane exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 259 mostly American passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground.

A Scottish court meeting in the Netherlands sentenced Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to jail for life in 2001 for planting the bomb.

Under the offer, relatives would receive up to $10 million for each person who died in the explosion, in three installments linked to the lifting of sanctions against Libya.

The main change in the new version is that the escrow account into which Libya would pay the money would remain open for an initial period of eight months, rather than one year, but the period could be extended. The lawyers did not explain the significance of the change.

If no sanctions are lifted in time, the account would close, Libya would take its money back and the relatives would have to resort to the courts for compensation.

The lawyers signing for the Libyan side are Robert Mirone, Anne Sefrioui, Mohamed Abdul Jawad, Azzam Eddeeb, Ali Dawi.

Kreindler and Kreindler urged the relatives to accept the offer on the grounds that collecting compensation awarded by a court would be difficult.

The US government has kept its distance from the negotiations between the lawyers and has not promised that it would in fact lift any of the sanctions.

State Department spokesman Frederick Jones said paying compensation was only one of the conditions for lifting sanctions, along with a Libyan acceptance of responsibility for the bombing, disclosure of its alleged support for "terrorism" in the past and a renunciation of "terrorism".

"Libya must satisfy all of the remaining requirements before the United States can support the lifting of the UN sanctions. Libya cannot pay its way out of the other requirements. There are no short-cuts around these obligations," he said.