The former Prime Minister of Italy Giuliano Amato accused France and the US on Saturday of being responsible for it plane tragedy of Ustica, where on June 27, 1980, 81 people were killed, claiming that these two countries did everything to keep the case from being exposed.
Forty-three years after the plane crash, the victims’ families are still demanding truth and justice for one of the worst aviation disasters in the country’s history.
On the evening of June 27, 1980 An Itavia DC-9 with 81 passengers and crew on board from Bologna to Palermo crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea near the island of Ustica, north of Sicily. None of the occupants survived.
Many Italian experts hypothesized that the crash of the DC-19 occurred as two Libyan MiGs, pursued by US and French fighter jets, followed the path of the civilian aircraft to avoid being detected by their radars. Based on this “war scenario”, the DC-9 was accidentally shot down or collided with one of the MiGs in the area.
In an interview published today by the newspaper La Repubblica, the former Italian prime minister (1992-93) puts forward this theory, claiming that France, with US help, wanted to kill then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as he believed he was in one of the MiGs. “The most reliable version is the one that talks about the responsibility of the French Air Force, with the cooperation of the Americans, with the aim “to kill Gaddafi“, said the 85-year-old Amato.
The wreckage of a Libyan MiG-23 was found on July 18, 1980 in the mountains of Calabria, fueling this case.
According to Amato, the then general secretary of the Italian Socialist Party, Bettino Craxi, who was said to be on good terms with Gaddafi, was aware that the Libyan leader would be in danger if he entered Italian airspace and had warned him.
In 2003 Gaddafi accused the Americans of trying to kill him. France and the US have always denied that their own fighters were involved in the Ustica air tragedy.
Amato, however, asked French President Emmanuel Macron to “wash away the shame that burdens France“, either proving that these accusations are unfounded or, if confirmed, “sincerely apologizing to Italy and the families of the victims”.
Source: News Beast
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