Libya on Wednesday denied it had offered US$2.7 billion to compensate the families of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, but U.S.-based lawyers who announced the deal said they believed agreement can still be reached.
The reported offer to the relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in Britain's worst-ever mass murder was greeted as a step in the right direction by the United States, but Secretary of State Colin Powell said he needed more details to assess it properly.
"We are waiting to see what the actual Libyan offer is. It's not yet formally put on the table and we'll examine it when we see all of its elements," Powell told reporters in Washington.
"Just reading press accounts of what has been said about the offer, it certainly is a step in the right direction but I don't think it resolves the entire issue, resolves all the outstanding issues that have to be dealt with, with respect to Libya and Pan Am 103," he said.
New York law firm Kreindler and Kreindler said Libya would release $10 million to each of the victims' families, but only in stages as U.S. and United Nations sanctions imposed on Libya following the bombing were lifted.
Most of the 259 passengers who died when the airliner was blown up over Lockerbie were Americans. Eleven residents of the small Scottish town of Lockerbie were also killed.
Relatives have generally responded with some suspicion to the offer, noting that it is hedged around with conditions.
"LIBYA IS NOT PART OF THIS ISSUE"
Libya's state-run Jana news agency, monitored by the London-based BBC, quoted a Libyan spokesman as saying: "Libya is not part of this issue ... As far as the Libyan state is concerned, it has not been accused in this issue ... and it has nothing to do with any accords."
Jana quoted the spokesman as saying that all Libya knew was that Libyan businessmen, joined by legal experts, held meetings with families of the victims and did not inform Libya officially of the outcome.
Kreindler and Kreindler had said 40 percent of the money would be released when the now suspended U.N. sanctions against Libya were lifted, another 40 percent after U.S. commercial sanctions were removed and the rest handed over when Libya was taken off the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism.
Asked about the Libyan denial, Lee Kreindler, one of the lawyers who announced the settlement offer on Tuesday, said in New York he still had confidence in the offer.
"I can't explain it or why it is happening ... There were very real and important meetings.
"I think what has happened, the nature of the people we have been meeting with ... there is no doubt in my mind they were authorized by the Libyan government to do what they were doing," he said.
Under the offer, the payments must first be accepted by the victims' families, who sued the Libyan government in 1996.
