Democratic Party (PD) Elly Schlein
made an appeal for the truth to be revealed about the 1980
Ustica plane crash that left 81 people dead as she arrived in
Paris for a visit on Tuesday after former Italian premier
Giuliano Amato said at the weekend that he believes a French
missile caused the disaster.
Amato said the Dc9 Bologna-Palermo flight operated by the
now-defunct Itavia airline that crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea
between the islands of Ponza and Ustica on June 27, 1980, was
hit in an attempt to assassinate late Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi.
He said Gaddafi "evaded the trap" because he was tipped off by
late Italian Socialist Party leader and ex-premier Bettino
Craxi.
After the comments caused a furore, Amato clarified that he did
not have any new evidence, saying that he had presented a
hypothesis that he considered highly credible in a bid to get
the people who did know to reveal the truth.
"The right to the truth is, above all, a right that belongs to
the victims' families, but it is also a right that is due to the
whole country," Schlein said in Paris.
The French foreign ministry said Saturday that Paris has already
given all the information it has in relation to the Ustica air
disaster but was ready to cooperate further if called on to do
so.
Bobo Craxi, Bettino Craxi's son, said his father did give
Gaddafi a warning, but it regarded the 1986 US bombing of Libya.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
