The French airliner bombing central to the Gaddafi-Sarkozy funding trial
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and three of his ex-ministers will stand trial in Paris on January 6th on corruption charges related to the alleged illegal funding of his 2007 election campaign by the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Part of the prosecution case is the alleged offer by Sarkozy’s entourage to overturn, in return for the funding, an international arrest warrant issued by France against Gaddafi’s brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi, who was found guilty in absentia of masterminding the mid-air bombing of a French airliner in which 170 people died. In this interview with Mediapart, the sister of one of the victims, and the daughter of another, recount their long quest for justice, and explain why they hope the trial will finally present the truth about the suspected ugly dealings over Senussi.
OnOn September 19th 1989, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operated by French airline UTA and carrying 156 passengers and 14 crew, took off from the Chadian capital N’Djamena on the final leg of its journey from Brazzaville, in the People’s Republic of the Congo, to Paris. Less than an hour later, as it flew above Niger, a bomb hidden in a suitcase exploded in the cargo hold, causing the aircraft to break up and crash in the Ténéré region of the Sahara. There were no survivors.
