Families of 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner blamed on six Libyans signed a 170 million US dollars compensation deal with Tripoli Friday in Libya's latest step to mend relations with the West.
The accord was signed in Paris by a representative of a private Libyan fund run by the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. France and Libya were expected later in the day to issue a statement pledging to strengthen bilateral ties.
"This accord shows that Libya is changing, has changed," said Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, who lost his father in the attack and helped lead negotiations that led to the deal.
The pay-out total, clinched late Thursday by family representatives and Libyan negotiators, falls short of the 2.7 billion pay-out agreed by Libya last year for 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.
But Denoix de Saint-Marc defended the French deal, saying the difference between it and the Lockerbie pay-out was not as large as it seemed.
He estimated between 40-60 percent of the Lockerbie compensation would disappear in legal fees and a further 10 percent in federal taxes. He reckoned the Lockerbie families would end up with at most 2 million each.
The UTA pay-out is expected to be shared among families of victims of 17 nationalities, including Africans, Americans, Britons and Italians who were on board the UTA plane when it was bombed over the West African state of Niger.
"Fourteen years is a long, long time to wait," said Danielle Klein, whose brother Jean-Pierre, 30, died in the bombing.
"The Lockerbie deal made us realize they were deaths which were seen as more important financially than our deaths ... At least now, we are receiving compensation worthy of the name -- it's not the jackpot but it's a decent amount."
**RELAUNCHING RELATIONS***
Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam was to meet his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin Friday followed by a joint news conference due at 5 p.m. and an Elysee Palace meeting with President Jacques Chirac.
France convicted six Libyans in absentia for the UTA attack, but Tripoli has always denied responsibility for the bombing and insisted it would not match the amount of the Lockerbie pay-out.
Since the Lockerbie deal, Libya moved further to improve ties with the West by pledging in talks with Washington and London last month to scrap its banned arms programs. France insisted a UTA settlement must be part of any reconciliation.
In a New Year's speech to French diplomats, President Jacques Chirac said Thursday a settlement of the UTA dispute would "allow Libya to reintegrate itself fully in cooperation initiatives between the two shores of the Mediterranean."
Paris threatened last year to veto the lifting of U.N. sanctions on Libya after Tripoli agreed to pay the 2.7 billion US dollars in compensation for the Lockerbie bombing, a deal that dwarfed the initial 34 million US dollars UTA settlement.
But it relented after Libya said it would increase compensation for the French airliner bombing.
The UTA accord was signed by Denoix de Saint-Marc for the families, Saleh Abdul Salam Saleh, of the private Libyan fund paying the money, French victims group SOS Attentats, and French state bank CDC, which will handle the transaction.
**PHOTO CAPTION***
Saleh Abdoul Salam of Libya, representative of a private Libyan fund run by the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, smiles as he signs a 170 million US dollar compensation, January 9, 2004. (REUTERS/Charles Platiau)